With Finer Grit
by born30
Summary: It shouldn't have come as a surprise. Post-S12, out of canon; Ziva-centric; Gibbs' POV; T/Z.
1. Gouge

**Disclaimer: NCIS isn't mine.  
Warning: Language sprinklings. Spoilers for seasons 11, 12.  
Credit: Cover picture by ****Kelly Brown Photography.  
** **A/N: Maybe I'm crazy, but this has poked at me since July. There are reasons it stayed in my files. I don't know how far it will go, or how often I can water it and put it in sunlight. It just wants to be, you know? I have to get it out. So I'm gonna try.**

—  
 _Craftsmanship has been said to consist simply in the  
desire to do something well, for its own sake._  
Matthew B. Crawford  
—

 **Chapter One - Gouge**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs might have left his house unlocked for the past twenty years, but he wasn't stupid. After the girls were taken from him, he'd done it in challenge. _Go on—come and get me._ Who was it he was goading back then? Ghosts? Dirtbags? Company in the dark…

It was dark as hell in his living room, now. Dark and empty, to anyone else. Not to Gibbs. Crawling the death jungles of Panama had given him a sense for when the air wasn't his alone. Something else drew short, nervous inhales opposite him.

His hand hovered over the service weapon at his hip, thumb on the leather snap. Habit more than precaution. He pretended not to look right at her.

"Gonna hide forever… Ziva?"

Her breathing stopped; his, too. Holding, holding. _Don't run_.

The floorboards whined. Her shadow moved in shadows, the silver buckles on her boots catching moon glints streaming through the windows. He couldn't make out her face, but there was a rich voice—

"I was not hiding."

Gibbs finally exhaled. "No? What do you call this, then?"

"I was waiting."

"For?"

Her hands waved, fluttered. He'd always meant to teach her to sign. Add another language to her repertoire. She had thin, expressive hands— _good_ hands for it. The gesture they made now said, _who else but you?_

Gibbs squeezed the back of his neck, misdirection for his rolling advance: heel, toe, heel. "What're you doing here, Ziva?"

Her single, jittery laugh snapped through the air. "That is, uh…not an _easy_ question to answer."

"Why now?"

"Again, it is not—"

"Easy, right." Half the distance gone. He saw her clearly: the guarded eyes, the coffee-brown hair slicked back so tight the skin of her face stretched taut over the cheek bones. Still damn young. Not much older than Kelly would be…

How long had it been? His dry eyes flipped to the ceiling, counting. Year and a half? Nah, had to be more. DiNozzo came back. Bishop came to them. Dad. Then, Zakho. Almost two?

Two years and she was a shadow, clinging to walls. Haunting.

Two years and it still wasn't 'easy.'

Two years, _goddamnit_.

His sidestep was sudden, but Ziva— Feet planted. Forearms up. Hands like blades. She would've had him.

And any other day, Gibbs would've smirked it off.

She caught herself, dropping her arms at her sides. "I am sorry, Gibbs. I—"

He swept around her. Treads heavy, strides long. His gun went in the safe; his suit jacket in the front closet, swapped out for an insulated vest, work shoes for boots. She didn't budge. He retraced his steps—out the door.

"Let's go," he called from the last step off the porch. _Like hell I'm letting you stay here alone._

Gibbs entertained driving around the block, making her _really_ wait for him. He gunned the engine loud enough to earn complaints from the neighbors in the morning. His foot left the brake—

Ziva slipped into the passenger side, slamming the door shut. She didn't ask where they were going. She didn't say anything at all.

He told her to buckle up. _Click._

They whipped down the driveway, onto the road, and into the night.

…

The white blaze in his chest receded with each passing highway mile marker. The Virginia wilderness was blue-black when they arrived at the cabin. The headlights of the Charger cut and the gloom deepened.

"You have kept it."

It was the first she'd spoken in forty minutes. Gibbs preferred quiet, but nothing she had to say that night would be extraneous or trivial. Why else would she be there?

"I converted it to a woodworking hutch awhile back."

"The projects in your basement—"

"Bring 'em up here now."

"It is…peaceful," Ziva approved, weaving the overgrown trail ahead of him. At midnight. With cloud cover. Good 'ol Mossad training.

He noted how calmly she walked toward the little prison. Toward interrogation. Could he blame that on Mossad, too? How'd you hold the past accountable?

Gibbs nodded at the pyramid of chopped firewood aside the porch. "Grab a few, would 'ya?"

Ziva did, and they went inside. Her remark that the interior was almost as bare as his living room won her a sideways quirk of his mouth. It was as if she'd gotten him to belly laugh, she was so proud.

With the fire going, Gibbs claimed his rocker near the hearth. Ziva took a sanded tree stump opposite him, her torso leaning parallel with her thighs. The heel of her right boot bounced. Her coal eyes darted. Panic settling in.

His wingspan opened over the arms of the chair. _Well?_

"I do not know what you want me to say, Gibbs." As if she hadn't been the one skulking in the dark of his living room. "I am sure you have questions for me, why I left—"

"Try something I don't know."

Their eyes met. Echoes of her tear-soaked, self-loathing rambles dripping over the phone line rang in his ears—clear as _goddamn_ morning reveille. Ziva looked away first.

"You quit," he reminded. "You wanted to go. I couldn't stop you."

"That is not…untrue." There went her hands again, grasping at invisible words to explain herself. Ziva interrogating Ziva.

Gibbs rocked on the curved runners. Taken two sittings to sand them down smooth. He rocked, and waited.

And waited.

"Ziva."

Wild eyes flicked up to him. "I should not have come."

"Maybe," he agreed, but she wasn't moving. Practically glued to the stump. "You in trouble?"

"No. Why would you—"

"Need something?"

Silence.

 _There it is._

"Do not mistake me, Gibbs."

"Then start talking, Ziva."

Her dark brow furrowed; she huffed. No wonder Eli went gray. Would she stick her tongue out at him, too?

No. She began. "Ever since I left, I have sought to make amends with my...past actions. It is a long list, as you might imagine."

Gibbs scoffed, loud.

"I tried to do good," Ziva bit back. Hating him, probably. But needing whatever this was more. "It was an effort to make up for all those..." Something caught up to her, choked her off, and she tried again. "For those I have… _hurt_." Once formed, the solitary word destroyed her mouth, gnashing with the blades of every sin she'd committed, every tortured soul she'd torn from a body with a bullet or her knife. She closed her lips over the wreckage.

The rocker slowed, slowed. Stopped. Gibbs leaned over, arms on his knees. The maple planks under his feet warped and his breathing tunneled through his ears. He'd let her go, and hoped. Heck, _hoped to God_. It kept him sane about her. He deleted her number. He found a replacement. Why was the knife still in her belly?

Ziva tilted sideways on the stump and he envisioned her toppling like a wobbly toddler. Instead she eased to her feet, paced. She came in and out of his downward gaze.

"For a long time, I spared little thought for NCIS. It was easier that way. It was not until last year, when I saw the news bulletin out for Tony's arrest in Marseille. I knew the murder charges must have been a misunderstanding. I was staying with an old friend in Paris. I almost tried to…" Her steps lagged out of his sight.

Gibbs recalled the case. He rummaged for other times the agency made international press she might have seen and— _ah_.

Her voice returned, scratchy with smoke. "I heard about Cairo. My condolences for the loss of Agent Dorneget."

"He was a good kid. A good agent."

"I also know about the incident in Zakho, from which I see you are sufficiently recovered."

The pockmark below his ribcage itched dully. It was a mistake, trusting a kid tangled in grass-roots. In something so chaotic, so addictive. Gibbs ached with his age.

"Mostly," he replied. "That was three months ago."

"Yes."

"You've been gone two years, Ziva." 

She thawed, rotating her body toward him. Her eyes were not beautiful in the firelight, but murky caverns. "Yes."

Gibbs blew out a rough breath. "And you just thought to _show up_ now?"

The same clawing rage from the house mounted his spine, shredding into his hunched shoulders. Then the workbench was under his hands; the empty rocker kicked wildly behind him. He hadn't moved that fast since a child terrorist shot him point blank. His gasps came raspy, a baby rattle in his chest. Maybe he was developing asthma, like McGee.

"Where is that damn…" He patted around for the bottle of amber liquid on the shelf and overturned two small Mason jars. Screws and nails clinked, scattered.

"I have upset you." The screeching door hinges acted as snitch, giving away her retreat.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"I thought you would not want me—"

"I'm your ride, remember?" He pointed with the bottle. Her, the stump. "Sit down. We're not done."

That she obeyed the command without rebuke— _again_ —almost sent him running himself. Where'd his Ziver go?

Gibbs spilled out her finger's worth first. He overflowed his own and downed it. Poured another. The liquor ripped up his throat. His eyes watered, and the fire was burning through too fast. They were both sweating inside the tinder box. He sat, taming the inferno within him.

"No more stories, no more _damn_ confessions. Tell me why you're here."

Ziva swallowed her bourbon as painlessly as room-temperature water. She stared into the ice-blue of the rifle scope. "Hearing about Tony, and you, made me realize that the list of those I had…it would not be complete without NCIS. I would like the chance to make things right, if you will have me."

More echoes. Gibbs wrenched his head away and there she stood in his basement, teary-eyed, jumpy from months of torture in that _hellhole_ Somalia. _It is_ your _blessing I came for…_

He blinked, hard, and there she was in his bullpen, looking nothing and everything like a girl who'd killed her half-brother. _You requested this—_

Gibbs pinched his eyelids shut. It shouldn't have come as a surprise.

 _Who else but you?_

"Gibbs." Ziva, there.

"Yeah." He swiped at his jaw, mouth. Night sounds returned. The fire dared to crackle. The waves…they turned tail.

She dangled out her Mason jar, and Gibbs obliged. It was all he had for her.

They drank steadily together, but separately. They were quiet, lapsing into their own minds. So it went and went. The last leg of wood was fizzling when she wandered, feet dragging, over to the workbench. The neck of the bottle lolled from her fingertips. Sips remained. She'd had more than him, in the end.

The bourbon was abandoned for a carving knife.

In the smoldering dim, Gibbs watched her raise the blade. _Eyed_ her. It didn't leave you. And he watched her take aim.

Three strides and he intercepted her hand, sparing a new plank of butternut from senseless gouging.

"I know what I am _doing_ ," Ziva spat, wrestling him.

"Nope." Gibbs wiggled the tool free of her grip and nudged her in the direction of a cot. "Not tonight."

Her head bobbed and bobbed, and she argued no further. She fell hard into the cot and harder into sleep, her boots still on.

…

Gibbs didn't sleep. Not well. Oblivion clawed him under for bits and spurts; little girls in chains and red fire pokers and fathers absent chased him out again. Had he not touched her, yanked a knife from her drunken grip, he might have wondered if he'd spent the previous evening in a nightmare. Or else conversing with a ghost. It'd been known to happen before.

When he woke for good, Ziva wasn't in the cot opposite him.

Outside, he picked up ladies size 7 boot-prints leading from the cabin down a side trail. A hundred paces due northwest brought him through the prickly forest to the lake. He'd discovered it awhile back, went fishing on occasion. Caught and released bottom-feeding Redear Sunfish, mostly. His rowboat could cross one end to the other in eighteen paddles. He'd counted.

Ziva stood at the jagged edge of shore, pointed out at the water. Her thumbs hooked the back pockets of her jeans. The ponytail was gone and her sleep-tangled curls hung down past her shoulders. He joined her statue.

"I did not notice this the last time I was here."

 _You were too busy throwing a fit_.

Tony wasn't around to talk her down and Gibbs wasn't in the mood after the night they'd had. He swallowed dewy air. "I'll take you out on it sometime."

"I do not fish."

Nodding, Gibbs looked to the lake. Morning sun brought out the best in the aqua-brown depths. His fair eyes shied from the glare off the surface, squinted.

"I'm not telling the team for you."

"I know," Ziva said, breathless standing still.

"DiNozzo's got a new girl."

"I did not expect anyone to wait for me."

"Uh-huh."

" _Gibbs._ I did not."

"O-kay."

A tepid breeze sighed between them. A birdsong flew into the branches over their heads. The temperature would rise by noon; they were in the first days of September. The transition from one thing to another.

"Okay," Gibbs said again, slipping out of formation.

"W-we are leaving?"

" _I'm_ getting coffee." The throbbing at his temples was Morse-coding a request for caffeine. Instant would have to do. "We don't leave till tomorrow."

Underbrush crunched and snapped. Her graceless chase was far from Mossad-issue. "Tomorrow?"

Gibbs pulled up, forcing her to do the same or slam into him. "Well yeah, David. Didn't think I came up here just because of you, did 'ya? I came to whittle."

Feet planted. Shoulders straight. Gaze narrowed. "And what exactly do you suggest I do while you are _whittling_? You know I am not a woodpecker." Those hands of hers, flying. Hands designed for work—art, maybe. Not for curling knuckles white, fisting regrets.

"Wood _worker_ , Ziver."

"Still."

His smirk emerged, crooked as ever. "C'mon. I'll teach you."

Gibbs gave a jerk of his head, turning on the trail. She followed.


	2. Strokes

**Chapter Two - Strokes**

"Oh, and—no case."

Gibbs tripped the corner into the bullpen. "What?"

"No…case," Tony said again, slower. His eye twitched. "Yet. I'm sure we'll get the Bat Signal any minute now."

"Yeah." Gibbs found his desk, the chair.

"You okay, Boss?" McGee was probably the most perceptive of them all.

"I was just going to ask him that!" Except maybe for Bishop. She was young—strong eyes, still. Her desk was a revolving door. "Everything all right, Gibbs?"

He blinked. Tony blinked, too. Again. No—Morse code? No. _Winking_. What was this, a cop show?

"I'm fine, McGee. Bishop. Back to work." He stared hard at DiNozzo, tapping the corner of his own eye. _Yeah, I got you._

Ziva hadn't wasted time. Soon as they'd made it far enough out of the wilderness for cell service, she'd dialed her old partner.

"Not who I'd confide in," Gibbs had warned.

But with Tony in her ear, she hadn't heard a word.

Twelve house later and Gibbs would be surprised if the cat stayed in the bag through lunch. No active case. No distractions. His agents stealing worried glances when they thought he wouldn't notice…

Marching orders delivered swiftly. Menial errands—Gibbs wouldn't deny it. Follow-up interviews, cold-case due-diligence. McGee was the last to leave.

"Not going to join us, Boss?"

"Nah. Go." Gibbs sent himself to the coffee cart instead, doubling his usual frequency.

 _Since when, Marine?_ The question zipped through his mind with the first sip of fresh brew. So long he'd sought it out. Took it on. No waiting for cases to come his way. He'd find them. He'd solve them. Some thought it was over. He was over, after Zakho. After Parson's investigation. After an explosion wiped his memory, he tried, but—

Ziva. She dragged him back. Pushed him away. _Go_. She kept her apartment, right there in the city. He'd let her off in front of the brown brick. She kept it, all that time...

 _Swoosh_ , his fourth empty circled the trash bin. He got the hell out of his head, and not a second too soon.

"Miss us, Boss?"

"Oh, sure," Gibbs played along.

They dropped their gear. Yawned. Stretched. McGee checked his phone messages. Tony gave a subtle wink.

 _Well, damn, DiNozzo. You held it in._

Bishop popped gummy bears at her desk. That desk. They should destroy it. "Still no case, Gibbs?"

The boys perked; she beat them to it. Dogs for bones.

Gibbs looked to one, to the next—beyond them, to the purpling horizon over the Anacostia. "All's quiet," he reported.

And so the wait grew.

...

The lights were on, inside and out. His house glowed like honey out of the dark. Her cherry-red convertible filled his space in the driveway. She kept that, too.

"The hell now," he groused, parking along the curb.

Ziva met him at the screen door, high on her toes. "I expected you home sooner."

"Careful—I might mistake you for an ex-wife."

She ignored him. "Tony said you are not on a case right now."

"Tony said, huh." He wove around her, hitting the switch for the porch lights. "Those stay off."

"I did not want you to think I was _sulking_ again."

He didn't correct her.

From the fridge, he grabbed a beer. One. For himself. Ziva moved from the foyer, but stood, arms folded behind her. She would have made a good Marine.

"I thought you had your own apartment," Gibbs said, tossing the beer cap on the table.

"I do."

"Then why do I keep finding you in my house?"

Ziva gaped for a long second. "I deserved that," she conceded. "Although to my credit, I did try calling you earlier. You did not answer."

He'd let it go to voicemail.

Gibbs folded into the worn embrace of his chair. He crooked a finger at her, and she bounded forward. Eager as sin. "Ziva?"

"Yes, Gibbs?"

"Do I have to check that voicemail, or you gonna tell me what you want?"

That got a small wavering of her lips. _Small_. "It is that, um…" Ziva paused. She lowered to a corner of the coffee table; it didn't seem she had a sure leg to stand on. She started again, stopped.

"Spit it out," he gruffed, and her coal eyes widened.

"Yes, well. Tony thought it would be a good idea if I reunited with McGee and Abby in person tonight, and for it to be a surprise, and—" Her feeble laugh dissolved like salt in water. "Let's just say, it did not go well."

Gibbs balanced the bottle on his knee. He sighed, low and long. What had she expected? Two. Years.

"I had forgotten how emotional Abby can be. And _loud_."

"DiNozzo should've known better." _I'm going to poke that winking eye right out of his—_

"It is not Tony's fault." Her shoulders sloped, caving inward. Gibbs was reminded of Kelly's Raggedy-Ann, discarded off the bed.

"Hey." He stuffed the sweating bottle in her hand. "They'll get over it. Give 'em time."

Ziva chugged. Hiccupped. " _Slicha_."

Chuckling, Gibbs swiped up the clicker. Channels flipped, western to news to western, again.

Her nails scraped the glass, picking at the label. "You are not going to your cabin tonight?"

"Nope."

"I quite liked the…quiet there. I was hoping you could show me more with the woodworking, actually," she added, mood on the rise. "I was doing well, I think."

True to his word, he'd taught her a few things. Quick lessons in handling a carving knife, pressure, basic cuts, and she'd taken off, butchering up wood scraps with conviction belying the knotted stubs she produced. It'd occupied her for the weekend.

He never figured she'd want to keep at it.

"I don't go up on school nights." Why'd it sound like he was apologizing? Wasn't his job to take confessions in the dark and tuck old agents into bed and hold their damn hand through—

Ziva stood, finishing off his beer. She left him for the kitchen. Bumps and scrapes; the silverware drawer stuck. He'd get to it.

"Whenever you return to the cabin…" She appeared at his shoulder, offering out a chilled replacement. "I would like to go, too."

A brawl broke out in the canteen. Gibbs palmed the bottle. "Ah hell, David."

...

Wasn't long before news of Ziva's return spread—through the rest of the team, the Yard, the Beltway. Vance.

The Director wasn't one for presiding over the office. His presence on the top landing meant they were having a little chat. Gibbs took the stairs at a jog.

"Behold, he brings good tidings…and news of a particular agent's return, I hear."

"You run into DiNozzo in the parking lot this morning, Leon?"

Vance half-smiled around his toothpick. The habit hadn't reared its head in awhile. "That I did."

Strike two for his Senior Field Agent.

Gibbs rested his forearms over the railing. His knobby fingers laced. The knuckles cracked. "She's not an agent, you know."

"Yes, she made that clear when she turned in her badge to me. Which begs the question: why is she here now?"

His team was out, running mindless errands. Down in the empty bullpen, Ziva paced the cabin floor, orange flames licking her heels, prodding. "She's restless."

Vance mimicked the team leader's posture, twining his fingers. "I don't have to tell you about women, Gibbs. They change their minds constantly. If Ziva's here for a social call with your team, fine. If she wants back in the game—"

"Hasn't come up."

"What has, then?"

Gibbs came off the railing. "Look, _Director_ , if she wanted a job, I'm sure she would've come to you. But she's not an agent," he repeated. "Not anymore."

"She is an asset, though," Vance countered, taking the wood from between his teeth. "And very well-connected in Europe and the Middle East. Keep me informed."

Gibbs glared. _Growled_. "Is that an order?"

"Why don't we leave it at 'trust your gut' and see where that gets us?"

Heel, turn. The staircase wheezed under Gibbs' galloping descent: _nowhere, nowhere, nowhere_.

...

The elevator stalled and the world went blue. Gibbs stepped back from the consult, arms loose at his sides.

"Cozy." Tony's laugh bounced off the walls. "You know, this gives me flashbacks to boarding school. I'm in Principal Brighton's office, again, for sneaking off campus. He was a stern guy, like you, and smelly, unlike you—"

"Make it right."

"What?"

Gibbs hadn't smacked him in, oh, some time. Hadn't he learned by now? "You know what."

"Ah, are we talking about Ziva? 'Cause see, we weren't yesterday. I get confused."

 _Smartass._

"You threw her in the ring last night, DiNozzo, without gloves."

Tony leaned back against the rail. Crossed arms locked away his humor. "I'll admit it didn't go great—"

"You can't keep your mouth shut, either."

"Ziva asked me to break the news, all right?"

Gibbs scoffed. "Okay."

"Besides," Tony continued, molars grinding. "We both know she's a big girl. She can fight her own—"

"She is." He caught the younger man's eyes. Neither blinked.

The knob in Tony's throat bobbed. He wheeled in the steel box, then back. Hands on his hips, then out. "I did what she wanted, Gibbs. I walked away. Moved on. I got a girlfr—" A short breath. "Sorry."

The air settled. Tony settled. They all had, since—

Gibbs' fingers jerked at his side.

Tony saw it, but guessed wrongly. "How many of your rules have I broken so far?"

 _Enough. None_. "Up to you." Gibbs reached out, tapped the emergency switch. Gears shifted. The lights flicked to white. They rose.

Tony swayed, forefinger and thumb on his eyelids. "I'm just trying to help her. She tells me you are, too. 'He's helping me get back in my shoes.' Good 'ol Ziva." His laughter swelled: a shallow ringing from far away.

The silver doors— _ding_ —parted. Gibbs beat him out.

"Wanna help her, DiNozzo? Make it right."

...

The cabin reeked bourbon and stale dreams, even a week after the damage. Gibbs propped the door ajar, airing it out. He had Ziva fetch the tools from inside, _probie_.

They worked out in the yard. She chose the porch, its sliver of shade. Summer clung in hot exhales. She sat, knees high. All that hair piled up, off her neck. He chose the rim of the clearing to set up the saw horses. Chose her block, too. Basswood. Soft. Easy to carve. Kid wood, and she knew it. Her instincts surpassed those strong, wiry hands.

"I do not understand." Chips flew off the block, off her knife. Her elbow was doing all the work. Wasting energy. Losing accuracy.

 _Wrist, not elbow_. But he'd told her already. She had to remember.

"It's not an insult." Gibbs lined the hand-sander along the grain of a reclaimed 2x6. _Shwoosh-swoop_. There went the chipped, red paint. _Shwoosh-swoop_. The chinks and divots. "Gotta start somewhere."

"Perhaps it is you who does not understand, Gibbs. I have always been a…fast learner, yes?"

He didn't doubt it. He was there for her meteoric climb to investigator, and what had come of it? Gibbs paused in his sanding. Peered up at the cabin. At Ziva, peering back.

"That so? Then why aren't you using your wrist, like I taught you?"

Her spine snapped straight. "I am."

"Not to my eye."

Ziva adjusted her grip, calculated a stroke…the shaving shot wide. And he'd seen that look on her before. Bad training time. DiNozzo's antics. Her father.

Gibbs breathed out, _easy_ , from his mouth. Black walnut peeked through dust on the 2x6. He tossed the sander, his protective goggles and gloves. Hustle brought him up to the porch.

"That thumb—" He stabbed at her non-carving hand. "—and the angle you take on the grain is your power. Don't rely on your arm. It's a rookie mistake."

"You said to use my wrist."

"Wrist is your compass. Thumbs on top of each other. No—" Gibbs lunged.

Ziva didn't flinch, but her eyes darkened. "I know how to hold a knife." Unsaid, _I know how to use one, too._

He stepped back. Hands up. "Never said you didn't, Ziver."

"But you are acting as—"

"Hey," Gibbs barked, his voice amplified through the trees. " _You're_ the one who wanted to learn."

"Yes, I did!" Ziva launched to her feet, stowing the carving knife in her glove—to his relief. She never took her blazing gaze from his face. "Perhaps I was wrong."

She shoved by him. _Go?_ Gone.

...

Ziva didn't get far. Gibbs packed up the cabin double-time, and then leaned on the truck's horn. Thirty seconds of blaring brought her racing down a side trail. He was backing out of the clearing before she had the door completely shut.

They hit macadam, pointed east, in silence.

Gibbs gripped the wheel. Tensed, released. He'd expected…well, he didn't know. He'd been in fights with ex-wives, upper brass, even friends. All this fighting with someone he thought of as a—

"What?"

Angled away from him and over the engine's roar, her whispers had no chance. "I said," she squeaked, louder. "I will leave tonight."

"Leave for where?"

"I do not know, but away from D.C. If it is not too much of an imposition, I would ask that you—"

A sudden veer and the truck bump, bump, bumped onto the shoulder. They came to a full stop with a jerk.

Ziva pulled her hands from the dash, breathing heavy. "Is there a problem?"

"Yeah. _You_." He jammed it in park and whirled on her. "You come back here, no warning, throw everything off its head—"

"That is why I must go! Do you not see?" she demanded, face pinched up. "I have been gone too long. I was foolish to think I could return without further inflicting—"

"You were gone too long. I won't argue with you on that. But how is leaving again the answer?" Gibbs stayed firm as the words struck his former agent agape. "That first night at the cabin, Ziva, you told me you came back to make things right."

"I have tried," she clipped.

"I know." Gibbs risked setting his hand just above her wrist, and she didn't stop him. He met her stoic brown eyes. "It's not gonna to happen overnight. You want it? Fight. _Hell_ , I've been fighting for you all week. Ask DiNozzo."

Her expression bordered on troubled. "You are not the first person to say that."

"No?"

"That you are fighting for me."

He nodded. "Did you believe them?"

"…I did."

"You believe me?"

Her chin quivered as her gaze fell, and she covered his hand with her own. It was an answer in itself. Curtailing anything further was the _brrrinnngg_ of his cell phone. It startled them both, but it wasn't the surprise that spiked his pulse. What had he called his agents, dogs for bones?

Gibbs yanked the buzzing device out of his pocket, puzzling at the caller ID before flipping it open. "Abbs?" Rapid, high-pitched squeals spilled out of the receiver. In the torrent, he picked out one recurring request. He held the cell across the cab. "For you."

"She cannot want to talk to me, Gibbs."

"Wants to apologize for that dinner, I think." _Atta boy, DiNozzo._

Ziva regarded the phone with wariness worthy of a bomb. One she couldn't defuse.

"Gotta start somewhere," he reminded, with a shrug. "I don't have anywhere else to be."

And he'd seen the look she gave him then, too. Light and gratitude. It came with something he'd waited to see again for two years.

Her smile.


	3. Reclaimed

**Thanks: Dana, for early reading; everyone, for the love. And the doubts. I need to hear those, too. :) I hope you enjoy this installment! Much love, T**

 **Chapter Three – Reclaimed**

Chain of command was a bitch. Gibbs would know. He'd screwed it more times than he could count.

"That's all I have for you. You'll learn more from the agents when you arrive." Vance leaned back, hands folding at his sternum. "I apologize for the short notice, but you know how these things go."

"Yes, sir. I understand." Tony snapped the briefing book shut. "You can count on me."

Karma wasn't so pleasant a mistress, either.

"Were you going to run this by me?" Gibbs paced back from the end of the conference table; his inclusion in the meeting up to that point had been courtesy, at best. "You're reassigning one of my agents. That's something I need to know about."

"Temporarily," Vance emphasized, "reassigning _._ Agent DiNozzo has a connection to the Marseille office from last year. They requested him for this assignment. Do you want to assign an agent to your team for the interim?"

Gibbs curbed a scoff. "We'll be fine."

"Ouch, Boss. You don't need me? That hurts."

He ignored Tony's theatrics. "Next time, I want a head's up."

"I always do, if possible." Vance held the door open for them. "Agent DiNozzo, I'll be expecting regular updates."

"Absolutely, Director. Hey, hey, Gibbs!" Tony sped after him through the outer office and onto the landing. "I had no idea this was happening, for the record. And believe me, it's not great timing. Abby's going to be pissed with me. The team camping trip is this weekend and I promised to—"

Gibbs whirled in front of MTAC. "You got a point, DiNozzo?"

The Senior Field Agent sobered. No audience. "Did you hear, she invited Ziva? I guess they've gotten back on friendly footing the past month. It's been pretty nice, having her around again…"

An icy-blue stare waited him out.

"We're good, right, Boss?"

Tony craved more than just laughs. Always had. Gibbs rolled his neck to the side. Below, McGee and Bishop finished breakfast at their desks.

 _Take out one piece…_

"Gibbs? Everything all right?" Tony waved a hand. "You're spacing out, like in _Final Destination_ when—"

Gibbs clapped him on the shoulder; it was almost a push. "You waiting on a farewell party?" He turned, meeting the staircase. "Try not to be framed for murder while you're over there. _Again._ "

A boom of laughter chased after him, filling the office.

"I'll send you a postcard!" Tony hollered from the railing.

…

Wind chimes trilled when a text came in to Ziva's phone. It didn't seem her style. Maybe not the Old Ziva, Gibbs supposed. There were lots of surprises with this new one.

"Is it so hard to believe I would say 'yes'?" Her thumbs, roughed –to–raw on the inside knuckle joints, flew over the screen.

"I didn't say that."

"I enjoy camping, and Abby was kind to invite me."

"I'm not trying to talk you out of it, Ziver." His gut still tossed. Didn't matter. It was done, like DiNozzo in France. He hung a right off the main road and parked at the bottom of the gravel path. "Here."

"Carpenter & Sons?" Ziva read off the metal sign.

"If you're serious about carving, you need to start picking out your own wood."

He got no argument. She finally tucked her cell away and followed him up the drive.

The log-cabin façade of the woodshop and ample lumber yard out back were as familiar to him as the Lab dozing on the front steps. "Hey, Pen," he called as they reached the porch. Just the dog's dark, wet eyes registered visitors. He put the top of his hand out, let her sniff. "Where's your Mom, huh?"

The golden's trim tail _thump-thumped_ the wood.

"You know who I'm talking about." He smiled, scratching around behind her ears. "Where is she, girl?"

The screen door swung, freeing a spry figure from within. "Leroy Jethro! Where the hell have you been?"

His smile stretched a little wider. "Only been a few months—miss me, Jo?"

 _Pollyanna_. His mom had loved that book, and watching the movie took her mind off the sickness near the end. Jo was the freckled-faced, red-head optimist all grown up, with a bit of Annie Oakley thrown in for good measure. Gray had long mixed with her orange-y waves. He could relate.

The retriever whined the loss of Gibbs' affection, but her owner had claimed it in a fierce embrace.

Jo pushed him back to arm's length. "Wouldn't take it as far as missing you, but we _were_ getting worried they'd been some boating-building accident in that basement of yours."

They shared a knowing chuckle. Ziva cleared her throat.

"Well, hi there. Gibbs! Is this a daughter you've never told me about?"

"Something like that." His mouth was unusually pliable. "Johanna Carpenter, meet Ziva David."

"That is an appropriate name," the Israeli remarked, shaking hands.

"Pure coincidence, I swear. I couldn't get my husband—God rest his soul—to touch a wooden spatula, let alone timber. His name sure has made a good business for me and my boys. But enough history." Jo stuffed her hands in the front pockets of her work apron. "What can I do for you two today?"

"Ziva's learning the ropes. Needs the intro."

"My pleasure! Come on this way."

Gibbs took a back seat. He let Jo explain the hard woods, the soft woods, what woods were best for which projects. He could've done it, like he was teaching Ziva everything else to know, but it wouldn't have been the same coming from him.

Jo slowed near the rows of redwood. "Big question for you now, Ziva. What are looking for?"

"I have attempted to make only what Gibbs has shown to me. I do not know what I _can_ make."

There he went, chuckling again. "I keep explaining it to her, Jo…"

"The wood'll tell you," the old friends chorused.

Ziva flung her frown between them. 2-against-1. She enunciated, "Wood cannot talk."

"You'd be surprised. Let me show you." Further on they traveled, the scent of pine and dirt and earth-spice growing pungent. They entered a shaded corner of the lumber yard. Jo melted into the scenery. "Here we have the reclaimed wood. We get about half of our lumber stock this way. It's what we use exclusively in our woodshop."

"It is old, then?"

"Old doesn't mean no good." Jo's brown eyes sparkled. "It's true reuse and recycle. Each piece has a history. Each plank was a fence or barn or part of someone's house. Believe me, they have stories to tell—and new things to be. Just gotta listen."

Something glimmered in Ziva's own toasted browns, and her gaze on the piles of junked wood intensified. Her hands were stained amber and black from rummaging, but she did not seem to notice. A slab of shabby olive wood drew her attention, and of course it was at the bottom of the heap. Gibbs stepped in to help.

She stopped him. "No, please. I have it." And with a tug, it came loose for her, sliding out as if it trusted her touch. She held it up, tracing the dark spirals. "I think this one would like to be a…knife…perhaps a spoon. Does that make sense?"

Jo placed her hand on the wood's face, beaming straight at the younger woman. "I hear it, too."

Ziva beamed straight back, and even Gibbs had to admit it all felt _damn_ hopeful.

After they checked out, Jo saw them to the screen door. Pen was now dozing a few feet away, in the grass and sun. "Make sure you bring in your finished product. We love to see what our customers create from the reclaims."

"I will do that. Thank you, Jo." With a parting smile, Ziva left them on the porch.

Gibbs dropped a kiss to her cheek. "What she said."

"Don't be gone a million years again, Jethro."

Her stare got him. Maybe it'd been more than a few months. "Copy that."

In the truck, Ziva was already on her cell. She glanced at him, lips swerved. "You two are cute together."

"Aw, I was about to say the same thing about you and that phone."

"It is Abby," she countered over the engine. "She says they have arrived at the cabin. I cannot wait to see her and McGee."

And Bishop. The _team_.

His gut kicked. What kind of weekend it would be.

…

They returned as Gibbs was measuring out a second workbench. He knew by the _crunch_ of fallen branches and leaves. Three heavy boot treads (the fourth almost too stealthy to detect) coming down the hill. Their voices—three of those, too. One silent.

It was another forty-five seconds until Ziva marched through the yawning cabin door, flinging it closed behind her.

"That was open for a reason," he griped. It was well into October and still warm, rendering the dark hutch sweltering.

Ziva paid him no attention. Her face was flushed, hands in fists. She paced the tight quarters, like she had that first night. An animal caged in.

"I'm guessing the hike didn't go well."

" _What do you_ _think_?"

"Dunno. I wasn't there." The measuring tape retracted into the shell with a _snap_. He tossed it in the toolbox. "You knew this was coming, Ziva."

He'd missed the introductions between Bishop and her predecessor. Abby took charge of it, and he was happy to let her. Someone had to listen to McGee spew fire code from the Cub Scouts manual. Pitch tents. There were fewer hands than the previous year. Palmer, Tony, even Ducky. They'd needed the trip more, then.

"Yes, Abby told me she would be here, but I did not think it would bother me."

"You thought wrong." He expected her glare, but she expelled a scornful laugh instead.

"As always, Gibbs, you are right."

"I don't want to be. I never wanted any of this!"

Ziva stiffened. Regarded him, stoic. Looked away. "I know," came on a whisper.

 _If you'd just stay put—_

Her father had been a bastard, but maybe now Gibbs got why Eli did it. An empty slot on a Mossad roster; an empty desk in a bullpen. There was a job to be done. Gibbs heard his own father Jackson saying, _Life is a bunch of reruns, son._ Wasn't that the truth.

Right or wrong, it was done.

Outside, Abby was talking. Laughter erupted, ebbed. Ziva sat at the workbench. Picked up the chisel she favored. The gold Star of David dangled away from her throat as she carved up a maple block. It'd reappeared around her neck sometime after she returned to D.C. Her shavings were small, distracted. Her voice slithered into the quiet of the cabin.

"I know what you will say."

"Yeah?"

"You will tell me to fight for what I want."

Good to know he wasn't talking to a wall. "What's that?"

Her carving hand stilled. "I have already told you. I wish to make amends."

"That all?" And he might have gotten an honest answer out of her—maybe a couple to other questions, too—if he'd had the chance to press.

After a knock, the door creaked open. McGee was sunburned from collar to hairline. "There you guys are. We've been looking all over for you two. Wow, Ziva, I didn't know you could carve wood."

The block had taken on the beginnings of a pyramid. She pushed it aside. "I cannot create much of anything yet. Gibbs is teaching me."

"That's really cool. We should never stop learning." McGee's good-nature finally coaxed a smile out of her. "We're about to start the fire. Wanna join us?"

…

Gibbs hung back in the cabin doorway, his shoulder wedged against the jamb. Twilight descended over the clearing, where Ziva and McGee got the bonfire going.

"Tony would get a kick out of this."

"Campfire," Ziva reminisced with warmth.

"I didn't realize Tony was such a woodsman." Bishop walked into camp, snacking on marshmallows. "He doesn't strike me that way with his Armani suits."

McGee chuckled. "That's why you're a good investigator. Tony doesn't camp. Ever. Actually, I think last year was as close as he got, and he left early, remember?"

"That's because there's no electricity or wi-fi, McGee!" Abby, in platform boots despite the setting, rolled in the cooler. "And no electricity or wi-fi means—"

"No movies," Ziva supplied.

"And no movies in a 48-hour period means—"

"Cranky Tony," McGee concluded, unloading hotdogs from the cooler.

Bishop plopped down on a log. "Huh, I've noticed that. Also, if we're out in the field for more than a couple hours, he starts to get kinda…weird. What is that?"

It was Ziva's turn to chuckle. " _That_ is low blood sugar. I always kept a box of malt balls in my backpack for him, but pizza is also a valid option."

"Oh, I've seen that in action. Trust me." Bishop laughed. "But thanks. I'll remember that about the malt balls."

From five yards off, Gibbs caught the upward pulse of Ziva's lips—and the guarded remorse in her eyes.

…

The freshest scars on his body woke him the next morning. They ached—the small, circular indent a click southwest of his heart; the puckered incision lines across his chest. Had he gone on the hike, it would've felt worse.

He stayed in the cot, on his back. Stared at the corner arch above the door, breathing. Eyelids slipped, fluttered open. Ribbons of pale light illuminated the room. _Enough._ He sat up, swung his legs out, stood. Coolness enveloped him. Duck would remind him to stretch everything out, but it never really went away. Even before Zakho.

Gibbs was used to the hurt.

A dark figure blurred past the window. The stride was clean, agile. An arrow. His toes squirmed within his boots. Smoke and the sweetness of s'mores peppered the air outside the cabin.

"You still run."

Ziva whirled, jogging in place. "When I can. I prefer cities to wooded areas. Did we wake you?"

"We?"

Down the side trail emerged Bishop, one hand pressed to her side. She didn't run, but walked, the blonde knot on her head askew. "That was…some pace…you set, Ziva," she puffed out.

"It was not bad. I am a bit dusty."

" _Rusty_." Gibbs shot her a look.

Bishop was oblivious. "Thanks for…inviting me along. I'm going to, um…" She pointed in the vicinity of the tents, mumbling about water.

Gibbs watched his greenest agent stagger to the clearing. "You enjoyed that."

"A little," Ziva admitted, her chin ticked high. "She was fine the first two miles."

"Oh, sure." He would've smacked her up the back of the head for the stunt—two years earlier.

"Gibbs, I did not do it on purpose." She was adamant, guileless. "We talked, and Bishop is…very nice. I cannot speak to her performance as an agent, but you have only ever worked with the best."

"I worked with you." He caught her eye, held it.

Pride glowed on her cheeks. She and Tony had that in common.

 _We're good, right, Boss?_

They were good.

…

The Diner was busy on Saturday mornings. Gibbs held the door for an elderly couple, a fellow Vet, a mother with a stroller, Ziva.

Elaine, his favorite waitress, was already pouring his coffee. "I could set my watch by you, Gibbs."

"Am I that predictable?"

"If you have to ask…"

"It's too late," he finished, taking his usual seat at the counter. He wrapped his hands around the hot mug. Put his face in the steam. Inhaled hazelnut brew and sighed, "You're too good to me, Elaine."

"Like I always say, I'm just waiting on my proposal. Would this be a step-daughter of mine, then?"

Ziva slipped onto the stool beside him. "Something like that." She introduced herself this time.

His mouth quirked around the mug lip.

Once Elaine took their orders to-go, Ziva pulled her phone from her pocket. He liked to think cell service wasn't the only reason she'd come with him, but she'd spent the twenty-five minute drive from the cabin glued to the device. It certainly felt like he had a teenage daughter.

"Must be someone special," Gibbs tossed out.

Wind chimes cut the clink of dishes, the jangling bell above the door. She didn't look up from the small screen, but a faint smile flitted across her lips.

"Tony has his moments." Ziva fiddled with the chain of her necklace. "He says 'hello'."

Gibbs' eyebrows rose and fell, unseen. With a nod, he buried himself in his second cup. He didn't want to know.


	4. Brace

**Thanks: To those sticking with this. I know it's been awhile. Enjoy. ~T**

 **Chapter Four – Brace**

 _The bow dipped, scraping stone, and pushed into water. Gibbs leapt in with a grunt. His joints popped and creaked. He dragged the oar over his lap, slipped the glossy oak between swells. Paddle, rest…paddle, paddle, rest. The sky overhead woke blue, slow._

" _It's too early, Daddy."_

 _Kelly sat Indian-style on the stern thwart, rubbing at her eyes. A yawn. She was missing baby teeth. Her mother had done her hair in low braids._

" _You get up this early for school."_

" _But it's Saturday!"_

" _Then why'd you come with me, kiddo?"_

 _Kelly looked out at the lake. The mature tree-line hedged up to shore on all sides of the craggy continent. Night after night, they read_ Where the Wild Things Are _. She called him out if he skipped a page. She pretended she was Max._

' _And he sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year…'_

 _Sad brown eyes returned to him. "It's the only time I can see you, Daddy."_

 _His stomach clenched. No. Not so soon. "That's not true. You can come see me. Anytime."_

 _Kelly curled down into the boat's nooks. She built forts under the dining room table. They got upset. Made her put the blankets back on their beds._

" _It's too early. I want to sleep some more."_

" _We'll go home soon," Gibbs begged. "Just stay."_

 _She liked cozy; secrets. A lunch box of memories buried in the ground. She asked for a wolf suit of her own._

" _I'm so tired." Her red head disappeared below the gunwales._

 _His chest heaved. "Kelly…"_

' _But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go—'_

" _Night, Daddy."_

' _please don't—'_

" _No." Gibbs's rough exhales frosted before his eyes. Clouds. Mist._

" _Gibbs!"_

 _The water lapped and gleamed. The boat swayed, adrift. Where was the oar?_

" _Gibbs!"_

 _The sun peered meekly over the treetops. He squinted through the haze._

" _Gibbs… here!" Ziva waved from shore. It wasn't too far. There was the oar, in his hands._

 _Paddle, paddle, rest …_

 _He'd promised to take her out, teach her to fish._

" _Gibbs?"_

"Ziva," he grumbled, rolling over in bare sheets. A chill. Dusky ceiling. Was it night?

Out in the hall, the top stair creaked and her voice echoed, "Gibbs, are you up?"

"Be down—" His throat was wet. Drowning. He swallowed. "Gimme a minute."

Her steps receded, quiet as they came.

Shoulder, elbow, palm. He hauled himself to sitting. Curled his fists into the mattress and closed his eyes. The only thing alive in the bedroom.

Once presentable, Gibbs barreled down the stairs, a heads-up to them both.

"Elaine gives her regards." Ziva stood from the table, handed him a tall coffee. Her gaze flitted. When was the last time he'd seen her embarrassed?

He raised the cup, _thanks_. "Wasn't it my turn?"

"It was no trouble."

And it wasn't a surprise. Ziva. Coffee. The cabin, soon enough. It was Saturday.

The coffee was lukewarm. Gibbs microwaved it with the lid off.

"Do you have the varnish?"

"What?"

Ziva leaned her hip to the counter. Her hands did their thing, warming up the words before she spoke them. "You mentioned it last week, how it would be ideal for the piece I am working—"

"Right. Basement. Help yourself."

She went downstairs and Gibbs sank into his chair. A fine layer of November frost covered the lawn. The roast had extra kick. Had she grabbed the newspaper on her way in?

"Are you all right?" Ziva at his shoulder, her loose curls falling like a curtain.

"Fine."

"You are sure? You seem—" His hard stare proved no deterrent. "Spooked."

"It's _startled_."

She moved where he could really see her, and her him. "I meant what I said."

 _Hell_. Gibbs took a long drink. Glanced up and was smacked with every bit of her soft-eyed concern. She was more maternal than she gave herself credit.

"We've all got ghosts, Ziva."

"Yes," she agreed. They probably shared a few.

 _You were one of them, too, Agent Da-veed._

Gibbs pushed away the thought, out of the chair, fleeing. "Ready?"

"If you would rather not go up today—"

' _please don't—'_

"Said I'm _fine_ , Ziver." He shoved into his coat, boots. When else would he see her?

…

They were halfway to the cabin, the roads slick and empty of weekday traffic. He felt Ziva's wheels churning the whole damn time, and then—

"I accepted a position."

"You got a job."

"Yes, Jo offered me a few hours per week at her woodshop. It is not much, but—"

"It'll do," Gibbs approved. She needed something. Like him.

Her shoulders relaxed. "I am optimistic."

"So, this wasn't all just to spend time with me?" His ice-blues slanted her way, a spark of humor in the irises.

"At first," she admitted, rueful.

"There are other ways, you know."

 _You can come see me. Anytime._

Ziva braced her elbow against the window, her head against her palm. A coarse laugh rattled the cab. "I enjoy it, do you believe that? I would never have suspected I would…"

Gibbs heard, _Never thought I'd be like_ you.

"It is a good distraction."

He played fish, chomping at the bait. "From?"

"I enjoy it, but I did not exactly return to D.C. to take up a new hobby."

 _No shit._ He resisted. They always ended up here. His hand tensed on the steering wheel, urging them forward, faster.

Her eyes flicked on him, then off again. "McGee has been the most understanding. I do not think he was so much upset as confused."

 _We all were._

"For that, I am sorry, Gibbs."

Had he said that out loud? "Rule #6."

They turned off the highway. Ten minutes out.

"It is not weakness if it is warranted," Ziva countered. "At the time, I almost did not understand _why_ myself. It becomes easier the more times I explain it. To you—"

That first night of crackling flame and confession. Smoke filled Gibbs' nostrils, stinging. His eyes watered. She could've explained more.

"To Abby and Ducky…" Her hesitation released in a sigh. "And then there is Tony."

The Senior Field Agent made weekly reports to the Director—and inundated the team with pictures of baguettes and cafes. Might as well have been shouting _homesick_ across the Atlantic.

"We have had many, _many_ talks, Tony and I. Sometimes we are just repeating our steps, going in circles..."

" _Retracing_ ," he corrected. So it wasn't all sunshine and texting?

The truck bumped to a stop. The cabin faced east, and the morning sun crested over the roof. Inside, there were now two workbenches. His projects, her projects. A reciprocation of wood and tools. Small work.

Gibbs shifted toward her. "He was broken over you, Ziva."

Brown eyes stilled. The cab chilled gradually without the heater on. The windshield hazed with their breathing. She knew. "Tony was my closest friend."

"I remember."

"It was never my intention to hurt him. Any of you."

"How were we supposed to react?" _We weren't just a team, we were a—_

"That is fair." Ziva wove and unwove her fingers. "It will…take time, yes?"

Gibbs gave her that hope-line awhile back. She'd held onto it. "Yeah, usually does."

Her tentative smile lifted into his sights. "I would like to have everyone over to my apartment for dinner. Would you be there?"

His mouth crooked sideways. "What are you having?"

" _Gibbs._ "

There was no forethought. He reached for her. She went, and his chest flooded. Should he be so proud? His lips fell to her forehead, touch and gone.

"You're doing good, Ziva. You're gettin' there."

Somehow, they both were.

…

"Hold the elevator, please!"

A smirk crawled up Gibbs' lip. He pushed back the closing doors. "Hey, Duck."

"Oh, Jethro! Fancy running into you here." The aged but spry medical examiner hustled into the box. "We're not late, are we?"

"Nope."

The steel doors closed and Gibbs relit the '8' button. They rose.

Ducky juggled a baking dish. "Figgy pudding. Mother's famous recipe."

Gibbs nodded, holding up the bottle of wine inside its paper bag. "I don't bake."

They chuckled. Old men, old friends.

"Ziva seems to be settling back in quite nicely." Ducky's gaze probed. "You have feelings to the contrary?"

Gibbs tossed his arms. "Did I say anything?"

The '5' on the consult glowed. The Scot did not relent.

"I can't put my finger on her, Ducky."

"Hm, how so?"

His arms flew out again, ahead of his words. Ziva was rubbing off. " _Hell,_ I'm teaching her to whittle."

Ducky cocked an eyebrow. "Out of all of them, I'd always thought it would be Timothy."

"Me, too."

They arrived at the floor and stepped into the hallway. Ziva's apartment was the last on the left. The tight-weave carpet absorbed their stroll.

"Forgive me, Jethro, but I fail to see your problem. If you do not wish to continue instructing her—"

"That's not it. She's a natural." Gibbs' scoff was too heavy to be dismissive. "I just… don't know what she wants from me."

They reached Ziva's door. Soft classical wafted from within. He'd interrogated his share. He knew the truth from a lie, from a half-lie, from a half-truth. And he knew when it all came out.

Ducky knew it, too, and regarded him thoughtfully. "Would you agree her absence has left a hole?"

"We've got Bishop."

"Don't be evasive, Gibbs. Tony lost a partner. We all lost a co-worker, a friend. You lost an agent in Ziva, but dare I say…well," Ducky paused, mulling his words. "She has always been special to you."

"They all are." Fathers didn't pick favorites. Not out loud. Gibbs forced another scoff. It carried. "Is this going somewhere?"

"I believe it already has. All you had to do was let her in." The wise doctor's eyes glinted as the door swung open.

"I knew I heard voices." Ziva was breathless, smiling. She wore a blue dress and her hair up. All around her, light from the apartment glowed rich, warm.

Gibbs smiled along with her.

…

"Wait!" Abby launched her arm across the table, seizing the pair of wooden serving tongs out of the salad bowl. "You _made_ these, Ziva?"

"Those, too." Gibbs pointed out the bread knives and the spoon resting on the pan of stuffed-shells.

Ziva shot a glare at him. _Not helping_ , it telegraphed.

"And _you_ ," the Goth continued, "knew and didn't tell me!"

McGee's face went to ash. "Uh, just since the camping trip, I swear. Aren't you going to get mad at Gibbs, too? He's the one teaching Ziva to carve."

"He can also assign you cold case duty until the end of the year," Gibbs rumbled.

"Mad?" Abby folded her hands, the nails painted black, over her heart. "I'm not mad at anyone, McGee. I'm sad."

"Forgive us, my dear." Ducky patted her arm. "Your enthusiasm is a wonder to interpret at times."

"Oh, sorry. It's just we lost so much time with her." Abby's cheeks flushed, her dark eyes darting. "I mean, you, Ziva. Why didn't you tell me you're, like, this amazing wood-crafting maven now?"

"Because I am not?" Ziva released a soft chuckle. "I am only learning, but thank you, Abby. This is exactly why I asked you all here tonight. There is much we have missed from each other's lives. McGee is practically engaged—and I have not met her!"

McGee beamed. "When Delilah gets back from Dubai, we'll make it happen."

"Don't forget Jimmy's new baby," Abby chimed. "Scrumptious, teeny-tiny Victoria."

Ducky added, "The whole family is under the weather, otherwise they would have been delighted attend. Next time, for sure."

"Yes." Ziva cast her gaze over the table, set aside her cloth napkin, stood. She raised her glass. "To…catching up with old friends and—"

A sharp _rap-rap-rap_ on the door.

"Were you expecting someone," Gibbs asked.

Ziva shook her head as a familiar voice ricocheted from the other side. "Hey, I know you're all in there! Someone going to let me in?"

"Oh my god!" Abby flew to her feet. "It's Tony!"

The scrape of chairs over hardwood, the scuff of racing shoes, and then one Senior Field Agent emerged through the galley kitchen, his arm around Abby. " _Bonjour!_ Aren't you all a sight for sore eyes! Even Probie here."

"Same old Tony." McGee trailed them.

"Are you visiting, dear boy, or have you returned to us for good?"

"My reassignment is officially over, Duckman."

"Oo, yay!" Abby wrapped him in a hug. "The family's together again!"

"I'll toast to that," Gibbs said, catching Ziva's cool gaze.

When the others leapt, she hadn't budged. Her expression remained as frozen as her limbs—until Tony slipped into the chair beside her, the clink of silverware masking their exchange but not their easy smiles, their way with each other. It dawned on Gibbs that he hadn't seen them together in two years, but nothing had changed.

 _Close friends, my ass._

He had half a mind to go over and jog DiNozzo's memory of his girlfriend. If he still had one. McGee beat him to a distraction.

"Hey, Tony, did you know Ziva made all the serving utensils here? Pretty neat."

"Why thanks, McObvious." Tony tossed a conspiratorial grin at her. "Are they just finding out your dirty little secret now?"

"It was never a secret," Ziva maintained, but her smile was sly.

Abby huffed, "So everyone knew before me?"

The room filled with laughter, spilling over, enveloping them. All of them.


	5. Crosscut

**Triggers: Gore, language.  
Thanks: Mecha; everyone. I love you to the moon and back. ~T**

 **Chapter Five – Crosscut**

The truck door _creeeaked_ open and a razor wind slit the cab's pocket of warmth.

Gibbs lowered a corner of the newspaper, peered over the bifocal line. _The better to see you with..._ "You're late, Stock Girl."

Ziva, pulling her curls across one shoulder. The scent of wood was her fragrance, and she hadn't taken off the red apron emblazoned _Carpenter & Sons_. "I am responsible for more than stocking shelves," she sniffed. "Jo wishes you a happy holiday."

"You wish her one from me?"

"I did, yes."

He nudged her shoulder. "I was only teasing you, Ziva."

Brown eyes narrowed, but lacked heat. "I noticed."

Gibbs tore a square out of the paper and pocketed it. He tipped his chin to the coffees in the cup holder. "That one's for you. Elaine sends love."

"She is very sweet."

"Yeah," he agreed, turning the engine over. "She says the same about you."

…

With a grunt, Ziva hefted the sack from her shoulder onto the truck bed. "I believe that is the last one."

"Good, 'cause the sleigh's full." Gibbs secured the totes of wooden toys, four in all and bearing over three dozen gifts. He hopped off.

"If you are referring to Santa's sleigh, does that make us the gnomes who build the toys?" Ziva stood ankle-deep in snow, shivering.

Amusement quirked the corners of his lips. "Elves. You can wear the pointy hat."

" _Gibbs_."

"C'mon. Back inside."

The cabin was a furnace. Ziva kept her coat and gloves on. With the side of her boot, she nudged a stump across the room; it was practically in the fire before she sat down.

"This is nice," she hummed, another shudder running through her. White flurries melted into her hair.

"Did you forget about our winters?"

"No."

Smirking, Gibbs tossed on another log. The flames retreated, and then surged. He pulled out the newspaper clipping: there was more than in years' past. "We'll swing by as many shelters as we can tomorrow night. I'll pick you up—"

"I thought we were going tonight," Ziva cut in, confused.

"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve."

"But I will not be here. I told you."

"No, 'ya didn't." He'd heard the Holiday Plans for two weeks. Bishop, home to Kansas. McGee, with Delilah and his future in-laws. Ducky, to the Palmers. Tony, to Cancún—

"I am going home."

He would've remembered _that_. "Home, as in Israel?"

"Yes. I am visiting Schmiel." A smile accompanied the name of her surrogate grandfather. "I will also be fulfilling a charity commitment I made before…" She gestured as if to encapsulate her and him and their time there, at the cabin. "I feel I must honor it."

Gibbs lowered into his rocker. Kicked it going. He was missing a grandkid on his knee. "You weren't kidding. Two years of…restitution."

Her eyes narrowed on him again, the fire loaning them the spark they'd lacked in the truck. "It was justified. I did good work in my time away. _Important_ work."

 _And what we did wasn't?_

The thought wedged in his clenched jaw. "How long?" slipped out instead.

"A few weeks." As swiftly as they went up, her defenses withdrew. Another smile broke through, this one for him. "I will come back, Gibbs."

It lingered in the smoky air— _come back_ —a promise he'd taken time and again from the former agent, her father's daughter, the tumbleweed.

' _But the wild things cried, 'oh please don't go—'_

Gibbs stood. "Tony or someone driving you to the airport?"

"I will use a cab."

His head bobbed heavy on its stem. The workbench called, so he went. All evidence of weeks and weeks of toy-crafting were cleared from the wooden surface, save for one final project: a small treasure box with golden latch.

Ziva moved behind him. Across from his own, her workbench was _neat_. Free of shavings. Tools at the backboard, like soldiers lined up at attention. Half-sketched, half-carved, half-varnished spoons nested in corresponding piles. They'd become her specialty.

"I realize I have not properly thanked you for teaching me—"

"Don't start now." Gibbs passed over the box. "Detail this for me."

"I thought we had finished all the toys."

"It's for Amira."

Ziva's head snapped up; she shoved the box back into his hands. "No, it should be you. She is your goddaughter."

"I wouldn't have asked you," he gruffed, placing the contested object on her workbench, "if I wasn't sure."

Maybe the fire was to blame, but Ziva's cheeks burned up. "How would she like it?"

Leyla said Amira loved collecting "special things," found items, trinkets. He'd had a little girl like that, too. "She'll like whatever you do."

Ziva acknowledged, though her focus had shifted. She selected a slim chisel and a wide-bottom mallet, a combination for control on minute edges. He'd only ever seen her handle her gun with the same level of concentration as she afforded wood carving. And with almost the same amount of finesse.

It was minutes before she interrupted the scratch of metal over grain. "I did not ask…do you have plans, Gibbs?"

"What?" He was on his haunches, tending the fire.

"I may not celebrate, but I do know Christmas is not an _ideal_ time to be alone."

"You worrying about me, Da _veed_?"

"I am."

Gibbs smiled. "Abbs wants to decorate the house."

"She will enjoy that; you, perhaps not as much." Ziva laughed. "Will you visit your father?"

His vision smeared red and gold. "What?"

"Perhaps you should have your hearing checked while I am gone, hm?"

Gibbs' eardrums crackled as he rose too fast. Turned. She didn't look up from her work, the initial etchings revealing slopes and knots. Flower petals in bloom.

"Ziva, my Dad's dead."

The dark-haired Israeli stilled but for flickering eyelids. Light blinded after too long in the dark. "I am so very sorry, Gibbs."

"I thought you knew."

"No, I—" She finally searched him out. Her glow was replaced with ash. She'd always been fond of Jackson, and him of her. "How did it happen?"

"He was in his store when the stroke hit."

"When?"

"Two years ago, May. I thought you knew," he repeated.

Her brows pinched, hard. "How would I? I was not here."

 _Shit._ Gibbs squeezed the back of his neck, the building tension there. _Here_. Always seemed to be here—why? The time she'd blithely revealed it was Eli who taught her to use a knife. At five. Five. Years. Old.

 _A baby_ , he'd thought. What kind of father…

"Gibbs?"

Ziva, waiting on his confession in this strange give-and- _taketaketake_. The sizzling flames were their lone company there in the oven, until his words came, fierce and quiet—

"I don't know, Ziva. You knew things, when you got back here, things I—"

"It was not because I made a habit of prying into your lives."

"Except when—" A swift exhale dismissed the rest. Grey-blue eyes lifted into her straight stare. "You knew we'd lost Dorneget. You _knew_ Tony was framed for murder. You _knew_ I'd been _shot_ —"

"Yes, I did!" She was standing and her arms, her hands with tools fisted inside, flying- _flying_. "What exactly are you accusing me of, Gibbs?"

" _Hell_ , Ziva! You could have come back any _damn_ time you—"

"It was for you!" She released the tools as if they'd grown thorns. The mallet bowled down the stacks of spoons; the chisel struck the wall and ricocheted back—

A white flash, a wet crunch, and the blade—a knife through silk—embedded her left hand.

Gibbs blinked, and there he was on that desert hill with a scope, Saleem's knife grazing her throat and the trigger weighing nothing under his finger…

A quick, windy cry escaped her lungs, tearing him out of history. _Here, always here._ To the cabin, to—

" _Ziva_ ," he rasped, diving across the room. Her knees gave out and she crumbled to the stool. He caught her shoulder, braced her up. "Easy, _easy_."

Everything in spitting distance—the floor at her feet, her coat—was a blood splatter mosaic after Jackson Pollack's heart.

She hissed through her teeth, "That was stupid of me, yes? _"_

"Ya' think, David?"

" _L'zalzel!"_ Her good hand slapped the bench.

He was more interested in the bad one. There was the steady ooze of blood from the puncture; the chisel's wooden hilt, crooked as a nose, lazing in the thin webbing between her thumb and knuckle joint. Grey bone peeked through the split flaps of her skin at the wrist. The damage went _deep_.

Gibbs tasted bile.

She should've been wearing a glove. He should have _reminded_ —

Her growl emptied into his ear. She seized the handle.

"NO." He stopped her, easily.

"You will need to remove it before cauterizing," the former agent grounded out. Her watery eyes darted to the fire.

 _The hell_. "You're going to a hospital, Ziva."

"I want it _out_."

"And you'll bleed _out_ —"

" _Now_."

Gibbs scoffed. "Nope, here—" He grabbed rags and wrapped her hand, chisel and all, tying the knots tight. "That'll keep 'till we get you fixed up. _By a doc_." He was no Ducky, but he guessed she'd need more than stitches.

Ziva didn't argue. Pain over stubbornness.

But there was still the fire to put out and the drive back to the city and—

"Gibbs?" Her gaze floated around and around his face. She slipped further off the stool, further into him.

Regret over anger?

"I am s—"

"Shh, none of that," he whispered, leaning her against his chest, to her feet. "C'mon, I've gotcha…"

And Ziva, clutching her wrecked hand, allowed him to steer her out the door into the cold, bright winter afternoon.

…

A waiting room, a curtained-off space in the ER. Two news cycles. Ziva, close to murder. Then _finally_ —reason for visit?

"It was an accident," Gibbs told the nurse, who told the doctor. "She's a woodworker."

 _Stab wound_ went down on her chart _._ He thought it'd be more technical. 'Severed derma'…or something. Ducky made bug bites erudite.

They examined her hand with the chisel in; they promised surgery would be quick, successful.

"We can take it from here," the nurse assured him, smiling.

Ziva craned her neck above the bed's side rail. The fight had left her with the color in her cheeks. "Gibbs."

"Yeah." He stepped aside so they could wheel her down the hall. But— "I'm staying."

The nurse smiled wider. "We're going to prep her and then I'll come get you. In the meantime, go grab something to eat. And don't worry, she's in the best hands, _Dad_."

…

From the hospital cafeteria, Gibbs returned with an overpriced cup of coffee. He should have bought two.

"I don't understand why this is such a—" Frustration barely in check, Tony squinted over the front desk. "Okay, Gloria? What a lovely name. See, _my_ name is Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS"—a flash of his badge—"and I need information on someone who I think was brought in here—"

"Your relationship to the patient," the unamused receptionist drawled, "special agent man?"

"Ha! You're a hoot, Gloria. Tell me, is it like Facebook? Is there a 'It's complicated' box I can check?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes. Make it decaf. "Hey," he barked, "DiNozzo."

Tony whirled around, both stunned and relieved. "Boss, hi. What are you—"

"'Bout to ask you the same thing." He jerked his head, and Tony trotted after him into the waiting room.

"When Ziva wasn't answering her phone, I got a hinky feeling, so I had McGee do the ping thing. What the hell happened? Is she okay?"

 _She was pissed at me. We were pissed at each other._

"It was an accident," Gibbs recited. "She was carving. The chisel got away from her, went into her hand."

Paling to match the white walls, Tony nodded. Dropped into a chair. "Poor ninja. Sounds gruesome—and painful."

"They're prepping her for surgery. She'll be fine."

"Can I—uh, _we_ , see her?"

"The nurse'll come get us." Gibbs sank into the seat beside him. The tough plastic bit through his jacket, into his back. Garland was strung up and a faux tree with twinkling lights tilted in the corner. _Silver Bells_ piped softly from overhead. The toys for the shelters were still in the bed of his truck. Amira's box was back at the cabin, unfinished and splattered in Ziva's blood.

 _What a way to spend…._

"You were never going to Cancún."

Tony stopped massaging his eyelids. "Funny you should—"

Gibbs pinned him with a look, one eyebrow raised.

A heavy exhale tripped out ahead of a chuckle, and the younger man met the presumption dead-on. "I'll have you know, I prefer Israel this time of year. Not that we'll be going _now_ , which…she really was looking forward to her Schmiel, the man of steel."

 _Silver Bells_ eased into _White Christmas_.

"I'll never get how it is you know everything, Gibbs."

"Not everything," the team leader murmured into his coffee. "You two haven't exactly been subtle about it."

"Yeah, well. We're doing this right. For once." Tony tried masking a sheepish smile with his hand. It was no use. Laughter took wing, soft, like disbelief.

Gibbs remembered that feeling with Shannon. _Love-sick._

Tony got a text. "McAbby are on their way. They're just picking up the Duckman."

"She'll be _fine_." But that _family-safety_ warmth perched in his chest, same as it had at Ziva's place, with everyone around. The corners of his mouth nudged.

The smiley nurse breezed into the waiting room. "Ziva's all set. She asked to see you before we take her to the OR."

Gibbs tapped Tony's arm. _Tag._ "Go."

"But she wants you, Boss."

 _It was for you!_

The echo was strong; he could stand guard from afar.

"Don't make her wait, DiNozzo."

Tony beamed, and flew to her.


	6. Splinter

**Forgive this tired teacher her tardiness? Pretty please? Immense thanks to: Allison and Dana on this chapter; my readers, always.**

 **Chapter Six – Splinter**

The sterile chill of the surgery anteroom. Her hand numb atop the sheet. But her eyes traveling again and again and _again_ to the chisel poking through her violet-blue skin. It was the one she'd gifted to Gibbs, after Somalia. She was certain.

The nurse had promised to bring him back, but returned from the waiting room with someone unexpected.

"Sweetcheeks…" His smile. His almost tip-toe to her bedside. _Him._

But her chest seized because it was not—

"The saying's break a leg," Tony was teasing, "not a hand—hey, you all right?"

They bumped knuckles, both trying to mop the sudden leak of tears over her cheeks.

"Ziva, look at me, this is going to be a breeze, okay, it's nothing to—"

" _It is not that_." Her jaw ground tight. Of course. Of _course_. "He does not want to see me."

"Who? Gibbs? He's right—"

"This is my fault, Tony. If I had not," she sputtered, "if I had come back _earlier_ —"

"Shh, hey, no." And he kissed her mouth, softly. It was time. "Try not to worry, okay? Everybody's here. They can't wait to see you patched up."

There were no more tears. Had her face numbed, too? It would be a relief.

"We've got your six," Tony whispered, and was pulled away.

…

"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!"

Abby teetered through the ER's automatic doors on those stupid platform shoes. How she hadn't tripped and broken an ankle—or her neck—in all these years was a mystery to the laws of gravity.

"Is she okay? I can't believe it! You've never had something like this happen, and you've been woodworking for what? Like, a hundred—a _thousand_ —times as long as Ziva? Which means the probability of her sustaining an injury like this is in the 'freak accident' category, Gibbs, and that's—"

" _Abby_." Gibbs tugged her to his chest, murmured into her ear: "It _was_ an accident, you hear me? Ziva's gonna to be fine."

"Promise," she mumbled against his shoulder.

"On my badge."

Her body relaxed. "Oh, good. I was so scared because…"

"I know. Me, too."

They knew what it was to lose her.

McGee arrived, ten steps behind Abby; Ducky was another five steps behind them both.

"Hey, Boss. We came as quickly as we could."

"Jethro, how is she?"

"They just took her back. Tony's with her now."

But Tony still hadn't returned to the waiting room when a doctor in sea-green scrubs emerged from the surgery ward. "Family of Ziva David?"

Gibbs stood. So did Abby, McGee, and Ducky. He smirked. "That's us."

"I'm Ms. David's anesthesiologist." He shook all their hands. "The surgery is underway. She's handling it well so far."

Ducky inquired, "How long do you anticipate this to take, Doctor?"

"For a simple metacarpal fracture like this one? Four to five hours to post-op. Someone will show you to a recovery room where you can wait."

"Thanks," Gibbs said, a proxy for them all.

The anesthesiologist left the way he came, passing Tony swinging out of the ward.

"Finally, there you are!" Abby crowed.

Staggering, Tony released himself to the sea of worry, the gathering of friends, caring arms around his neck. But Gibbs saw both sides of the coin. The _love-sick_ boyfriend was gone, replaced with haggard, with dazed.

" _Tony_ ," Gibbs called.

Green eyes wandered, wandered, and settled somewhere middle-distance. Not there, not where she was.

…

The anesthesia took her all at once.

There was Tony, leaving, and the surgeons lining up their instruments on silver trays. _Like the professionals_ , she mused beneath glaring lights, pinned down by her broken wing. Had not Mengele been a physician? Dirlewanger?

Schmiel's admonishing tongue _clicked-clucked_ through the operating room. _You carry such weight, motek._

 _Saleem was a scientist_ , she argued back.

 _Let it go, bevakasha?_

 _Ken_. She was trying. _Had been_ —in Paris and Berlin, Mosul and Tel Aviv.

And Saleem's instruments were under sand, rusted. Gibbs' bullet killed him. _Had been._

 _Let it go…_

Yes. She was trying. _Is—_ in the apartment, the cabin.

And Schmiel knew, from his seaside terrace. And Tony knew, from the other side of her bed. And Gibbs knew—didn't he? She would ask…

 _Gibbs…?_

"Try again, sweetcheeks."

 _Oh_. _T_ — His name a strangled moan.

"She's in pain, Tony! We should call somebody."

 _Tony, not_ —

"Give her a chance, Abbs. She's got this."

The anesthesia wore off _sloooowly_.

The climb of will. The dark fuzzy. Ziva blinked, her lids _heavy-heavy_. Variegated blurs bobbed and slanted in her pinprick of sight. She slipped, tried again. Out of the haze came a jaw, a nose, his smile. _Him._

"Heyyyy, I missed those eyes."

"She's doing it!" Abby, close.

"Too…" She coughed, and her throat shredded. "Too…" She wanted them back, _move back_ —

"Whoa, easy."

There was pressure, gentle.

"It's probably best not to move that arm at all yet, sweetie," Abby cooed.

 _Yes_. _Trying._ _Is._

White shimmers—snow?—fluttered on the edges. In the swirl, Ziva drifted, drifted…

The next time she opened her eyes, it was clear. That suddenly. That sharply. The dim hospital room and the TV overhead, flashing, muted. Its lone viewer.

"Tony…"

He flipped right out of the chair, fumbled to the bedside. No words fell from his gaping, joyful mouth.

Ziva's own lips quaked, shy. "Hello."

"Hi," he finally said, grinning like mad. "How're you feeling?"

"I am—" Eruptions across her brow as she shifted—

"Take it easy, ninja." Tony guided her back down to the mattress—and her arm back atop the steep mountain of pillows at her side. The skin-tone bandages started above her left elbow, _wrapping-wrapping_ her ruined hand to the very top, unseen. _Had been_.

Ziva gazed away.

From the doorway, an explosion. "You're officially awake?!" Abby flew inside, _scuff-scuff-scuff_. She wiggled past Tony to administer a self-consciously _tender_ hug. "We've been so worried about you."

"I wish you had not."

"Like you could stop us." A blood-red smile. Pigtails bouncing.

 _Us._

Brown eyes swam the room. "Where is—"

"Oh! Well, once you were out of surgery—is this okay?" Abby scooted onto the bed until their hips bumped. "Anyway, it was pretty late, so McGee and Ducky went home—and also it's Christmas Eve, in case you're like, super disoriented—but they'll be so happy to hear –"

"Abby," Ziva cut in, coughing. "Where is _Gibbs_?"

"Coffee run? Hanging from a rafter somewhere?" Tony winked, swooping in with water for the tickle. "He'll be back, Ziva."

She heard, _He has other places to be._

She heard, _He does not want to see you…_

Into her shaky hand, Ziva took the plastic cup. Of course. Drank, _gulped_ , the tepid water. Of _course._

Her gaze pinched small and smaller, and the throbbing in her head swelled big and bigger—

And Schmiel waited by the sea.

And Tony put his lips in her hair, "shh-shh."

And Gibbs—

Gone.

…

He was a _goddamn_ coward.

Tony had wanted him— _all_ of them—to stay. Ziva cried, he'd said, before going under the knife.

 _Not my Ziver,_ Gibbs had sworn, back straighter than the recovery room walls. The _damn_ chisel had gone through-and-through and her response was rage and Hebrew curses.

New Ziva, then. Wood-carving-Ziva. ("You've been gone two _years_ , Ziva.")She was no more his than geography owned loyalty.

He'd waited on the doc in sea-green scrubs. The all-clear. Then he'd fled.

Kept the cabin door open to the dead of night. The snow-less cold spurred him. _Scrub-scrub-scrubbing_ on his hands and knees—spurred him.

 _It was for you_ , sloshed the red-tinted water.

Blood didn't come out of wood. No better than it had the cement in his basement.

 _It was for—_

The rag _slapped_ against the far wall, spewing over her projects. The artful spoons. Amira's box—touched by both their hands and tools. Unsalvageable.

His chest collapsed too low. The air lingering heat and smoke. He reached for something solid, the workbench, the floor.

Panting, knuckles wet and pink, Gibbs stared out of the cabin. Into the blush of a far-off dawn. Into the woods. The woods stared back, bare but for the eaves of its hearty pines. Silent but for the scritch-scratch of spindly branches.

He didn't stay away.

Subverted hospital visiting hours with a smile. Her borrowed room a den for the ones who wouldn't leave. Abby nested in coats; Tony dozed in a chair aside—

"Boss," his agent grogged, pawing at his scruffy face. "You're here."

"Don't wake her, DiNozzo."

Both men looked to the bed. Ziva, faded against the white. Her curls flattened. Her arm twice its size for the bandage.

 _Should have_ forced _you to wear a stupid glove…_

"She came out of it awhile ago, kinda." Tony spoke softer with his eyes on her. "Asked for you."

 _It was for_ —

Gibbs dropped into the vacant chair. "Go. Sleep, shave. I got this."

Hesitation, excuses…acceptance. Tony wheeled in the doorway. "But call me if she—"

"Don't worry, if your girlfriend sneezes wrong, you'll be the first to know, okay DiNozzo?"

Tony chuckled, like he was supposed to, and clapped Gibbs on the shoulder. _Tag_.

He spent hours in her head.

Couldn't be in his own. Couldn't keep seeing it, the macabre outcome swathed in flames, unchanged.

The chisel—cleaned—taunted from a plastic bag on the nightstand. It was an old one, nothing memorable about it until now. He'd never use it again.

Neither would she. The shift nurses recited: a splint, a hard cast. Six weeks, maybe eight. Then PT into early spring.

Gibbs sat forward, bore into her purple-puffy lids. Her knitted brow. Even in sleep, her guard was up. Keeping him out. Or was she?

 _It was for_ —

The answers he sought remained under with Ziva. Stubborn as always. Tony relieved him of the waiting.

He didn't know what to expect.

Vance, unannounced in his living room. "Hope you don't mind. The door was open."

"Always is." Gibbs tossed his keys on the table. Pinched between his eyes. A new gift for Amira. The toys to the shelters. He dealt with this, first. "What do you need?"

"I heard about Ziva's injury from Ms. Sciuto. Here I thought our job was hazardous."

"It was an accident."

Ziva would've called him a _broken tape._ He was a broken something.

"How's David holding up?"

"You could be asking her yourself," Gibbs gruffed. "What can I _do_ for you, _Director_?"

"No need for hostility, Gibbs." A maroon folder zipped across the tabletop. "Open it."

"I don't have time for this mysterious _crap_ —"

"Don't you think I'd rather be out last-minute Christmas shopping with my kids?" Vance claimed a chair, sat like a king presiding. "And if I know you right, I think you'll _make_ time to hear what I've found out about Ziva's two years in the cold."

Desperation fought off with his heels, his chest. A battle lost. He flipped the folder's cover, met dutiful brown eyes. Her hair tied back, chin high in the photo from another lifetime resting atop documents. Heat elevated off his skin.

"Not my Ziver," Gibbs murmured.

He hadn't gone further than the first page—and wouldn't. Shoved the dossier back, watched it fall neatly off the table's edge before walking away.

"Go be with your kids, Leon."

…

They let her leave.

Tony listened, and talked, and shook hands, and was _good_. He drove them to her apartment. She had kept it, all that time. He had her keys and opened the door.

"Home, sweet home."

The bedroom where she expelled nightmares. The floor where she and Tony exchanged forgiveness. The breezy kitchen where she attempted her _Ima's_ recipes that never tasted quite the same.

This was starting over, again and again.

"I want to call Schmiel."

"You sure you aren't hungry?" Tony popped his head out of the fridge. "And I did already. He knows we aren't coming."

Ziva stood in the foyer. Left arm hooked, splinted. That side of her coat dangled off her shoulder. She dialed with her good hand.

It was late-early in Israel. Schmiel assured he was up, reading. She bled apologizes, made new plans. Israel in springtime. She would arrive as the dark, exotic irises bloomed in the Duda'im Forest. They would rent a car, drive down, her and Schmiel. And Tony. It was close to the Be'er Sheva house.

 _Too close?_

They settled on almond trees and cyclamens at Sataf, but—

 _When you are healthy, Zivaleh. Only then you will come and visit, ken?_

"Yes."

She waited for Schmiel to hang up. The apartment was quiet, amber-lit, warm. Tony offered her the last piece of his bagel.

"You can't take the meds on an empty stomach."

"I do not need any more medicine." Her hand ached in its cage. To spite her, no doubt.

Tony sighed, but didn't push. "Before you know it, you'll be carving again, doing Pilates—"

"It does not matter."

"Ah, but I have a preference for you in that Downward Dog…"

"Stop it."

Another sigh. Tony rose from the couch, carried his plate to the sink. "I guess Gibbs will just have to talk sense into you wh—"

"I said, _stop it_ ," she snapped. "He does not want to see me. Is it not obvious enough for you?"

Tony, under the curved archway, arms crossed. "Why do you keep saying that?"

She could not look at him. Her handsome lover. Her best friend.

"What happened in that cabin, Ziva?"

"You know."

He was next to her, taking space. "There's more. Come on, te—"

"You do not get to bully me, Tony."

Defeat was green with brown flecks. "I'm not, I…. It's late."

"Yes."

They stood up together, not touching.

"Am I crashing your couch?"

Ziva blinked up at him. "No."

He helped her out of her days-old clothes. Suggested a sponge bath, and her skin smelled too much of hospital to refuse.

Tony washed and washed—between her breasts, down her legs; he kissed and kissed—her shoulder, neck, jaw.

The water was lukewarm, the suds few. She stilled his ministrations and climbed out, rivulets diving down her bare curves.

"I am sorry, Tony."

"Me, too." And he hugged her for a long time, the towel pressed between them.

She tried to return the favor, one-handedly undoing the buttons of his shirt. Lowering his zipper. His laughter ruffled through the hair at the top of her head.

They climbed into her bed and he whispered, "Merry Christmas, by the way."

Midnight in D.C. A new day…

"Gibbs told me about his father," Ziva said after they rested in the dark. She hoped he'd fallen asleep. He was so tired.

But his large hand grazed up under her nightshirt, soothed along her spine. "That what this is all about?"

"Part of it, yes."

"I didn't have a way to get a hold of you, when it happened."

Her words sank to the base of his collarbone: "I have missed so much."

His fingers, gliding from her neck to her hip.

"I do not know…if I will ever—and I know it is hard for you, that I did not return for…us. That it was for G—"

"Ziva..." _Sooo_ tired. "We've been over and over and _over_ this. It doesn't matter why."

A car horn bleated outside, in the street. Tony breathing, wrapped around her. This was starting over.

"You're here now," he slurred, falling, falling…

Ziva stretched, catching his lips with her promise. _Yes. Trying. Will._


	7. Knot

**Often it takes extra time, and stillness, to hear what a story is telling you. Thanks for your patience ~T**

 **Chapter Seven – Knot**

 _He started her young._

" _Is she too young, Jethro?"_ _Worried_ - _Shannon, his lovely Shannon, grabbing her knees over the blankets. "Never mind that it's God-awful early…"_

 _Gibbs gathered his boots, returned to their bed. The frame creaked with his weight. "Nah, she'll love fishing. Watch."_

" _Is your famous gut telling you that?"_

" _My Dad had me out on a boat at her age. Whittling, too."_

" _Hmm." Golden eyes playing hide-and-seek. She spoke from dreams, from memory. "And look how you turned out."_

 _Soft chuckles exchanged. The house around them, quiet—except for scurrying feet down the hall. Their daughter, their little mouse. Their wolf cub._

' _We'll eat you up, we love you so—'_

 _Gibbs palmed her cheek. "I want to do it before I—"_

" _No, you should," she agreed. Another deployment was never far off._

 _Shannon lied down. Gibbs followed her._

" _Don't worry, sweetheart." A smile, clawing up toward his ears; a smile against her lips, whispering, "I know our girl."_

" _Sometimes I think you're the only one who does," Shannon mumbled through a yawn. "Ziva's her father's daughter. Remember that—"_

Gibbs startled awake. Tacky eyelids breached, ripping lashes from their follicles. He blinked and blinked; sun streamed through the bay windows in his living room, warming his face. It was morning—and about _damn_ time.

"Oh dear, did I wake you?"

"Duck?" He flung his legs off the couch, levering up his sore frame. Sure enough, there was a medical examiner dithering in the foyer.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Jethro. I—"

"'S okay."

"—thought for sure you would already be awake."

" _Ducky_ , said it's fine." He braced off his knees. Something cracked in his back. "Wha'd'ya need?"

"I am a mere conduit for our sweet Abigail, who has concocted a 'jolly' scheme of sorts. She's putting together a Christmas dinner for everyone, and has tasked me with checking the availability of your house for hosting purposes this evening."

The place was as un-festive as a junk yard, but if anyone could turn that around in a blink of an eye, it was an elf named Abby Sciuto.

"Yeah, so long as you all clean up afterwards."

Ducky clapped his hands. "Splendid. Is everything quite all right?"

Gibbs grabbed the pot out of the dish drainer. "I'm making coffee. Want some?"

"It doesn't take a medical degree to see something is troubling you, nor does it serve anyone any good evading the issue, whatever it may be."

Grounds spilled from the bag, filling caulk grooves between tiles like soldiers lined up in a foxhole. Trench warfare, up-close and gory. Gibbs gripped the counter, knuckles going white under the raw patches. He mentally converted the clock-timer on the stove to military. 0817.

Had it only been two days since this started? A little less since he scrubbed her dried blood off the cabin floor. A handful of hours since the bottle drained and the hand-sander slipped from his grasp, clattering to the basement cement…

"Gibbs."

The machine gurgled, spewing dark liquid against the glass.

"Don't make me repeat my question," Ducky warned.

No. It needed out. It _needed_ , and Gibbs' aging gut—and liver—could withstand only so much abuse. He nodded, his white flag waving after a long, senseless battle.

"It's Ziva."

And the truth followed, from that first night to the accident to the hospital.

As the smoke cleared, Ducky drummed his fingers on the wood table. "Hm, troublesome, indeed. Obviously, there has been a catastrophic lack of communication between you two since her return."

"That your professional diagnosis, Doc? We need more heart-to-hearts?"

"It certainly wouldn't hurt. To use a medical metaphor, you and Ziva have treated the superficial cuts and scrapes afflicting your relationship these past few months, simply in an effort to survive – all the while, the greater wound of the heart festered. That's the one that will kill you, or in this case, severely maim."

The coffee remaining in his mug lost its heat. He went to the kitchen, refilled. Returned as far as the doorway between rooms and leaned his shoulder on the wall.

"I _know_ her," Gibbs gasped, head shaking. "She was mine for… I should know what's going on in her head."

"But she hasn't been _yours_ in some time."

 _Old Ziva, New Ziva…_

"You're not the same to _each other_ as you once were," Ducky furthered.

A ringing in his ears, a symphony of chisels and hospital rooms—and it was rough in his throat, the words punching out—"She said it was for me, Duck, why she came back. She'd heard about Zakho and…I don't know, but that's what she told me before the _goddamn_ chisel impaled her."

Blue eyes tapered. "Do you feel responsible for what happened to Ziva at the cabin?"

 _No._ "It was an accident." Gibbs dropped into a chair, coffee sloshing onto the table, over his wrist. "Maybe, I—"

"Perhaps you should speak with her about all this. _That_ is my professional advice."

"Yeah."

The fridge clicked on, humming. A car rumbled down the street, around the block, and the neighborhood settled again.

From the table, Ducky rose, but lingered. "For what it's worth, I doubt anyone could force Ziva David, agent or civilian, to do anything her heart was not completely set on. That includes who she allows close." He adjusted his foggy spectacles. "It is a trait you two have always very much shared."

…

Tony answered her door.

Clothes belonging to the day before hung on him, rumpled. Thumbprints of fatigue marred his under eyes and his shoulders sagged, flower petals over-bloomed.

 _What kind of night has she put you through, kid?_

They swapped bobbing heads.

"Thanks." Tony snatched the third coffee from the drink carrier Gibbs held. "Oh, um, and wipe your boots, or Ziva will have a fit about the floors."

"That is a lie."

The Israeli slouched outside her bedroom door. Peaky-skinned. Hair bushy and half-up, as though she tired before finishing.

"Well, you've come close to Mommy Dearest with _me_." Tony winked and snagged the sweater from her good hand. "I thought you were gonna try to sleep longer."

The storm clouds beneath her eyes were puffier than DiNozzo's. She grabbed the sweater back, defying him, them—neither? the world?—with an act of contortion. One working hand, be damned.

"Going for irony, Sweetcheeks?"

The navy appliqués were faded from repeat washings, and was that a blood stain on the cuff? Her old NCIS sweater was on its third or fourth life.

 _Kinda like its owner._

"It is the only one I have that fits over _this_ ," she argued, exposing the blue splint under the sleeve. Wincing.

"Still suits you, Ziver."

Brown eyes sliced to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

Skin pinched in horizontal bands across her brow.

"You were making that same face at me in your sleep yesterday," Gibbs observed.

"See, what'd I tell you? He was there, Ziva." Something passed between the couple, and suddenly Tony announced a "hankering" for bagels and was pulling on a scarf as he volunteered himself for the errand. He tossed his boss a look like _maybe you'll have better luck._

Gibbs hooked a thumb in his agent's wake. "You two haven't wasted time."

"Yes, we did," she snapped.

"Hey, are you pissed at me?"

Ziva's spine straightened with the uptick of his volume. That good 'ol flight or fight response. Her arms crossed awkwardly. Her lips moved—

"What," he demanded.

"No, I am not—"

"Okay, but it can't stay like _this_ , Ziva." Like they'd stepped back into the cabin milliseconds before— "I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."

Her gaze drifted above his shoulder. A trick of his own, to buy time. She didn't need much, finding him again, nodding curtly.

Fight, then.

Gibbs followed her, bringing the coffees with him into the living area of the apartment. They took opposite sides of the couch. He placed the carrier on the coffee table. IKEA junk. Dimensions for a replacement in white pine floated with the dust motes.

"Have you delivered the toys?"

"Most of them, yesterday."

"Amira's box," Ziva pressed. "I remember it was…. You could not have given it to a child in that condition."

"I'll think of something else." Gibbs sat forward, hands loose. Always a Marine. "How'd'ya think she'd like a picture book instead? It was Kelly's favorite, about a wild, rambunctious kid who's sent to his room and dreams up an adventure."

"She will love it because it is from you." Moisture gathered in her eyes.

Gibbs wasn't surprised when she excused herself to the kitchen, gulping down half his coffee before she returned, composed and with an ice pack. He watched the routine she performed to de-splint. Underneath, her stitched-together hand was swollen purple. The compress went on, swaddled in a small towel.

"How's it feel?"

"I have experienced worse."

Glacial eyes rolled. Ziva liked pain, a little. He was sure because he had a taste for it, too.

"It will be months before I regain any use of it, let alone be able to carve."

"Your projects will keep," he promised.

A door slammed somewhere in the building; high voices muffled, laughter.

"Do you regret it?" Her eyes, so sharp when he arrived, whirled with an invisible current.

"Gonna have to narrow it down for—"

"Years ago, you retired, but you came back to NCIS."

"Yeah, who do I have to thank for that?" His teasing earned a twitch of her mouth.

" _Gibbs_. Do you ever wish you had…stayed out of the arena?"

"Game," he corrected. "And, no. I don't regret it. But you're not me, Ziva. You walked away. When it wasn't good for you, when it asked you to be something – some _one_ else – you walked away. I think that's brave. I couldn't do that."

Somehow her healthy hand was inside his palm and Gibbs himself farther from the end of the couch. Soft waves nudged her lips up, _up_.

A knot in his chest shifted.

They came to his door, the desolate travelers. He knew what to do. It was the job. The life. Maybe he was nothing but a nursemaid, putting on band-aids. Stopping the bleed. But he was the best _damn_ nursemaid around, and Ziva was no different than the other hurt and lost.

He let her in.

"It has not been…easy to start over." She nudged the compress from her hand. _Ten minutes on, ten minutes off._ "At the hospital, when you were…when I did not see you—"

"I was there," Gibbs vowed. "For a few hours I left—"

"Yes, I know that now, but I _thought_ …" Ziva drew a breath, let it slither out through her teeth. "I have lost many people. My family, friends. I did not want to lose you, again."

 _Ah. There it is._

His arm ringed her back, towing her in, and she yielded to his side. "I could say the same about you."

Memory bore fangs. Her teary, monosyllabic plea across the Atlantic—the night she sent DiNozzo home empty-handed—gnawed on his heart.

"I am sorry, Gibbs, for—"

"Stop apologizing, would 'ya? I should have fought harder for you." He brushed back curls. "I'm sorry for that."

A sad smile, a shrug. "It would not have mattered."

Two years. The tumbleweed. He'd never asked where she'd gone, who she'd trusted. What she'd left behind. There was before, and after.

There was now.

Fleet and light, his mouth swept her forehead. "It matters – to me. I am glad you're here, Ziva."

Outside the bank of windows, flurries danced, sparkling through streams of sunlight. It could be a white Christmas, if the flakes multiplied and stuck.

"So am I," she whispered from somewhere deep within his own chest.

...

As he'd suspected, Abby worked magic. His house was both merrily _decked_ and _halled_ in time for dinner.

"We need festive, Gibbs," the happy scientist bolstered. "We need to bring it in, holiday-style."

"Couldn't agree more, Abbs." He tugged gently on her pigtail, and she jingled.

Out of the falling snow, they arrived. Ducky. McGee and Delilah. Then still more. Leyla and Amira. The Palmers with baby Victoria and a diaper bag the size of a grunt's duffel.

Tony and Ziva, hands surreptitiously linked, were last through the door.

That was all Gibbs saw of the undisputed guest-of-honor, until Abby sent him out corralling for supper.

He followed her voice, " _So he gave up being king of where the wild things are_ ," and poked open the door to the spare bedroom.

" _But the wild things cried_ ," Ziva continued reading, with Amira joining in, " _Oh please don't go, we'll eat you up, we love you so!_ "

"Does that mean you both got an appetite?"

"Hi, Gibbs." Amira waved as he stepped inside, but she didn't budge from the bed or Ziva's hip.

"You enjoying your gift?"

Amira nodded vigorously and Ziva hummed. "This is our third reading. Max is quite a _v_ _ilde chaya_ ," clucked her native tongue.

"You know the book's from me _and_ Ziva, Amira."

"Thank you, Ziva," the young girl chimed.

The former assassin about melted on the spot. "You are so welcome, _motek_." She looked to Gibbs, mouthed _Thank you_.

His chin dipped, and the knot unraveled _further_ , _further_.

"Dinner's on, girls," Gibbs said, just to evade a scolding from Abby.

But a smile broke across his face when two dark heads met again over the pages of the book.

" _Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye…and sailed back…where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot._ "


	8. Heartwood

**Thanks to Mecha and Allison & everyone. Almost done…**

 **Chapter Eight – Heartwood**

Ziva was in twisting sage pose— _maichyasana_ —when he called. Her apartment absorbed the static bleat of a horn, a shutting door, an engine's drone from across D.C. sprawl. She eased her leg down to the mat, settled her shoulders. Exhaled. Behind her eyelids, she followed him out of the NCIS parking lot, off the Navy Yard—toward her.

Tony, leaping up through the speaker: "You there? Ziva?"

"I am here."

"Sorry it's so late. Did you eat?"

She'd waited.

"Yeah?" He softened, grateful. "I can pick up take-out. Thai, pizza? What sounds good?"

"I will stir us up something here."

Tony laughed. "It's _whip_ up."

Ziva paced to the eighth-story window. Bulbs of light pulsed from apartments like her own, corner stores, traffic far, _far_ out, near the Beltway. She connected them until the line blurred.

"I'm almost to you," he sighed into her ear.

By her count it was eight minutes before his body was where she was. He slid around her like a life preserver, there in the doorway. They shivered with the winter chill brought in on his coat, but her apartment was warm, boiling even. She clutched the nape of his neck, fingers threading short hairs, holding him.

This was starting over.

"I see the doc OK'd exercise."

She wore her skin-tight yoga clothes and her curls up; the mat took space on the living room floor.

"Quite an observation. You should be a detective, Tony."

"It's elementary, my dear _Zee-vah_. I missed you today."

Her throat tightened. "You are late."

"Vance wanted to see me."

"What for?"

"The guy's hard to read, but he's still happy with what I did in Marseilles, so…"

Ziva nodded. "As he should be."

He loosened her arm from around his back, kissed her fingers above the hard-cast batting. "You're taking it easy, right?"

"It was only stretching," she sniffed. "I am fine. I _feel_ fine."

Worry flitted in his hazel eyes, but diffused.

"Just take care of yourself," Tony bid, "for me," leaned in, "please?" and snatched a proper kiss from her mouth…mouth…jawand neck _neck_ neck…

She purred when he reached the tender skin behind her ear—and nipped.

Their clothing peeled, slick as orange rinds. The bedroom was too far; they came together on her yoga mat. Quick, needing scraps. She rested her cast on his chest, hips swaying to meet him, closer, _closer._

 _I'm almost to you…_

He bucked, knees rising. _Zzzzzziva._

She'd lost count of her name in the air. She hummed, wincing slightly. _I'm almost—_

" _Tony_." Her slacked jaw, eyelids low. And… _yes._

Wordless, panting, he dragged her over him, thighs, hips, torso. They melted. The night lived on and on. Cars braked on the snowy street. A clock ticked somewhere—and in their chest. Time unraveled.

Tony touched her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"Uhh, my back is _kaput._ "

He didn't know his own Yiddish. Did he? Ziva lifted her face, flushed and indulgent. "Perhaps we are getting too old, hm?"

"Too old for spontaneous sex in unconventional places? Kill me now, Ziva." But he chuckled, stroking her side.

"I would rather do what we just _did_ again – in my bed."

Tony's head popped off the floor, a stupid, gooey grin burgeoning. She wanted badly to bite his lip.

' _I'll eat you up, I love you—'_

"Deal," he said, "but I'm gonna need to refuel first. Any chance of a Mama David recipe? Now those are to die for."

She might have blushed. "I believe there is _cholent_ leftover."

"Mm, love me some beef and potatoes."

They half-dressed, pants for him, his button-up for her. Ziva warmed the stew in a pot while Tony cut, as she directed, the rye bread medium thick. She doled out portions with an olive wood ladle that'd taken her two Saturdays to sketch, cut, whittle, sand, and polish. All with Gibbs hawk-eyeing her technique.

Tony wolfed his food and sat back, sated, staring crooked across the table at her. "Are you sure you have to work tomorrow?"

"Jo is expecting me. I have already disappointed her." _And Gibbs, and Schmiel, and you…_

"How 'bout afterwards? We could—"

"I will be with Gibbs." She diced a squashy carrot with her spoon. "We will be at the cabin."

"First time back…sure you're ready?"

Schmiel, from his terrace with his books: _When you are healthy, Zivaleh_ , o _nly then…_

How long did they expect her to wait?

"If I can do yoga and make your dinner, I can hold a chisel with this hand." Her healthy appendage shoved away her bowl, the stew cold.

"You know I don't mean physically." Patient-Tony. Caring-Tony. "It's not weakness. No one would blame you."

"For what? If I quit? Again?" Her teeth snapped after each demand. "As I always do, yes?"

He was staring again, but sadly. "Is that how you feel?"

That same pressure along her windpipe, choking—

 _Soldiers don't cry_.

 _Daughters do._

Ziva blinked, and her parents' voices dissolved.

Tony switched chairs, his knees bracketing hers. Here-Tony.

"I am trying," she told him.

"I know you are. You're doing some major healing."

 _When you are healthy, Zivaleh…_

She sighed, tired. "It takes time."

Tony bobbed his head loosely. He gathered her hands into his lap. Purple and pink hearts decorated the plaster. "Get some new ink, Sweetcheeks?"

"Amira." She said it like _Ima. Tali._

He pointed: a garden patch of flowers, some black.

"Abby."

He flipped her wrist over.

 _You,_ she thought.

His thumb grazed inky penmanship, scrawled in the heart of her palm.

 _Love,  
Tony_

"I'm not the only one, you know."

 _Yes._ She could name them, like rivers flowing into one sea…

"We've got your back, however long it takes." He leaned forward, kissing their foreheads together.

 _Love,  
Tony_

She breathed in his musky scent. Here- _Her_ -Tony.

"I missed you, too," Ziva blurted.

His smile grew at the edges, and she felt herself bloom with him. _I'm almost…_

"I'll miss you tomorrow." Tony winked.

She gave him more than her hands. Lights snuffed out in buildings. Water dripped in the sink. This was starting over. In her too-hot apartment, his lips making promises, then still more.

She made her own: _almost, almost, almost._

…

The lumber yard doubled as white-capped mountain peaks, but the gravel parking lot was plowed of the overnight snowfall. Gibbs pulled up to the door of _Carpenter & Sons_.

From her spot on the porch, Pen trotted out to meet him, trimmed tail a-waggin'.

"You're starting to remember me, huh?"

She butted her wet nose into his hand.

"Oh, is that all I'm good for?" Chuckling, he scratched behind her ears. The golden tilted her head into the affection, a bright pink tongue lolling out of her mouth. "All right, Pen. I've got the other girls to see, too. C'mon."

She followed him to the door, watched him go inside, and again curled up on the welcome mat.

"Not much of a guard dog."

"Not in years," Jo agreed, balancing on a ladder in the center aisle. "But she's family. Take these for me, would 'ya? Line 'em up there."

Onto a lower shelf, Gibbs stocked the sandpaper she handed down. "Don't you have a stock girl for this?"

"She's busy, and you're getting the hang of it."

He smirked. "My father ran a general store. Stock boy was my first job."

"I can just imagine you in a smock." Jo descended the rungs, meeting the floor with a bounce. "My boys did the same when they were teens."

Gibbs straightened, but didn't step back. He caught the scent of oak coming off her hair, the orangey-gray twisted into a braid down her spine. "How're they doing?"

"Oh, good, good. My Daniel will be coming home from UMass Boston for a couple days on his spring break. I barely get to see him anymore." She pressed onto the tips of her boots. Soft lips swept his cheek. "I don't see you often enough, either, Jethro."

"I do not mean to interrupt…" Ziva appeared at the end of the aisle. The amber lighting accentuated the gold in her eyes—and the knowing curve of her mouth. "I can wait outside, if you two need a little more…privacy."

His harrumph was swallowed in Jo's peal of hearty laughter.

"You should ask her to dinner," Ziva urged as they walked to the truck.

"Why the sudden interest in my personal life, Da _veed_?"

Flurries stole into the cab. She tugged the door shut and switched on the heat. Her shoulders shrugged. Or was that a tremble? "You deserve to be happy, Gibbs."

The heater pumped. Tires crunched snow. "So do you," he said.

…

Red ribbons fluttered in Amira's hair as she gained speed. "Ziva! Watch, I can almost turn by my—ow!"

Ziva was halfway off the bench when the cavalry arrived.

"You okay, kiddo?" Abby skated up, teetering herself. "Your mom would not be cool with you getting hurt on our watch. Here, let's get you on your feet again."

"Awesome wipeout!" Tony waited with his gloved hand outstretched.

Once standing, Amira put everything she had into slapping it—and giggled at the overdramatic whining that ensued from the grown man.

"I think you broke it! I can't believe an eight-year-old broke my hand!"

"That's not so funny, Tony. Ziva's hand is _actually_ broken."

"It's all right, Amira. He is only teasing," Ziva called. "I want to see you skate some more. You are doing so well."

The girl beamed. "Are you watching me, too, Gibbs?"

He waved from his seat beside Ziva on the bench. "I've only got eyes for you, sweetheart."

Amira let go of the boards, arms out like airplane wings at her sides. She glided and tripped over the ice. Tony and Abby raced after her into the gaggles of amateur skaters circling the outdoor rink.

The joy faded from Ziva's face. "This is not your cabin."

"Can't get anything past you." Gibbs tilted the coffee cup to his mouth.

"Why, again, are we here?"

"Told you. It was DiNozzo's idea. Be mad at him."

Ziva's eyes cut to the rink. Tony had Amira by the hand, towing her up after each slip. "I know what you two are doing. You think I cannot yet handle carving again."

"You said it, not me."

Her good hand smacked the stone between them. "I am fine!"

"Oh yeah?" Gibbs lazed his head her way, side-eyeing.

"I am frustrated," she bit out. "I had only started to make progress and then…"

And then.

They both looked out at the skaters whirling, laughing, skidding. Hot cocoa smell drifted from the concession stand. The sun streaked in a band across the ice and its occupants, warming an already mild January afternoon. They waved again as Amira glided by.

"She is a delightful child." There was enough warmth in Ziva's voice to thaw the rink to a swimming pool.

"Why don't you join 'em?"

"I do not want to risk further injuring my hand."

"So you'd face a chisel again, but you won't let DiNozzo hold you up?"

She toyed with the rim of her cast, the uncovered fingers red-cold. Gibbs nudged her, breaking the trance. Getting her gaze.

"You've made those amends you came back for, Ziva."

A blink. "What do you mean by that?"

If he said, _Stop punishing yourself, start living_ ; if he pointed to every scar she owned as proof, she wouldn't hear him. She'd think he was telling her what to do. Like that'd ever worked before. Instead, he dug into his coat pocket and produced a plain, square box the size of his palm.

"Here."

"What is this?"

Gibbs gave her a look. _Just open it_. He watched her as she wiggled the lid free and removed a silver key on a ring. Watched confusion trade for uncertainty.

"You are sure I am to be trusted alone at your cabin?"

"Should have given you a copy months ago. Would've made my life easier."

Ziva laughed, or close to it.

He tapped her arm above the cast. "You decide when you're ready. _Really_ ready, Ziver. No one else makes that choice but you."

Mirth lingered in her eyes, mixing with a surge of tenderness. He wrapped her cold fingers in his own, squeezing.

"Thank you, Gibbs."

"Don't thank me yet." With a two-finger point, he beckoned for Abby. Her toe-picks gashed the boards. "Get Ziva blades."

"Oo, yay, on it! I'll let Tony know you're coming out, too."

"I suppose I have no choice now." Ziva fought off a smile.

Gibbs drained his coffee and felt around in his pocket for the half slip of paper with a date, restaurant, and time in Jo's handwriting.

"We all need a push sometimes, Ziva." And he smiled, too.


	9. Sand

**~Many apologies & many (more) thanks~**

 **Chapter Nine – Sand**

Dulles to Ben Gurion. El Al. Connecting. One stop. 14h 10m. A price she did not care about but that made Tony whistle lowly through his teeth.

 _Good thing I'd follow you anywhere, Sweetcheeks._

They would rent a car, drive down—just as she'd planned it in a post-surgery haze. They would see the dark, exotic irises in the Duda'im Forest and the almond trees at Sataf. They would unearth Schmeil in puffs of old book dust.

 _The cyclamens are not quite ready for you, motek. Are you sure you are healthy enough?_

 _Yes. Maybe._

Was she?

Gibbs, holding her numb fingers while the ice skaters blurred: _You decide when you're ready._

 _I am trying._

 _Healing takes time._

"Ms. David?"

The paper on the exam table crinkled beneath her thighs.

 _Really ready, Ziver._

The key to the cabin shimmered in the cold sunlight.

 _Yes._

"Ms. Da—"

"Yes." Ziva straightened her spine. _Here._

The nurse was tall, her blue scrubs complimenting dark skin. Tony would find her pretty. The room around them was on the interior of the Bethesda orthopedist's office. Window-less. Antiseptic. Ziva sniffed, nose scrunching.

"Some people get squeamish at this point." The nurse selected a small circular saw off the tray, tested it. The blades _whhhirrred_ and stopped. "Can I count on you to hang in there for me?"

"Oh, you don't even know who you're talking to." Abby and her attitude from the chair along the north wall. "This woman is like the bravest person you'll meet. Don't insult her with that—"

"Abby."

The Goth beamed, unabashed by the rebuke, and popped both her thumbs. She had filled the silence of the car ride with stories of childhood tumbles out of tree forts, of purple casts emblazoned with stars and get-well-soon wishes.

 _You decide when you're ready._

Ziva had stories of her own. She held out her cast. "Take it off."

The saw spliced through the tough plaster, hacking a path from the bottom of the cast upward, through markered-on hearts and around her thumb, down into the valley leading up to her forefinger. She felt the vibrations; air kissed skin too-long smothered. Another tool from the tray was used to widen the scoring.

"And there's your hand," the nurse cheered. "Did you miss it?"

Atrophied and pale and cradled in cracked fiberglass and yellowed cotton. _Move,_ Ziva urged. _Please._ Her repaired thumb jerked, wobbling on its hinge.

Patent leather boots scuffed across the floor. A cooing bird released from Abby's throat. "Does it hurt?"

 _Are you sure you are healthy enough?_

Ziva breathed through stings and tingles. Nerve-endings waking up. "It is tolerable."

 _Healing takes time._

Frowning, Abby wheeled on the nurse. "We need to get this hand cleaned up. Get me sterile wipes and saline, STAT!"

Laughter bubbled out of Ziva. Friendship was a sweetness slowly reacquired.

The nurse gathered up the plaster carcass. "Care for a souvenir?"

She spotted the tiny scrawl in the palm, intact but faded from repeated tracks of her thumb.

 _Love,  
Tony_

And Schmeil waited for her. And Abby's gentle ministrations ghosted her hand, her wrist, her skin—all bare, free.

Ziva smiled, a slow and steady and lasting beam.

 _You decide when—_

The cast made a _thud_ as it careened into the trash receptacle.

…

Wrench. Claw hammer. Hacksaw. A few odd chisels. Rags, stained with stain. Wood scraps, wood dust, wood. Then the screws and washers and bolts and nails in their jars—or they were supposed to be. Upturned glasses, amber tinted; bourbon bottles at the backboard. A brew of mustiness and polish fumes permeated from the bench.

In it, Gibbs caught projects. A hint of white pine: the Palmer family's rocking chair. Maple's strong aroma: the ramp for Deliah's wheelchair. Older pieces, too. He thought of the _Kelly_ with oak and every spring, damp dirt tracking in on his boot soles. Autumn, and cherry wood, belonged to Ziva and their Saturdays at the cabin…

A screwdriver slipped, clunked to the cement. Gibbs swayed. Why'd he come over here? He delivered his own head slap. It did the trick. Weathered hands tunneled through the chaos by rote. He grazed a scrap of rough—

Muffled sounds from overhead. The front door creaking, the wood floors creaking, the drag and clomp of shoes. One pair, two.

"Knock-knock, hello? Oh, G-ibbs!" Leave it to Abby to find more than one syllable in his name.

"Down here."

A single tread continued through the living room, the kitchen…and then he was sharing the basement with Ziva, who practically pranced over to him. Her smile blinded.

"I am free." She brandished her left arm—a winter glove now where they'd all gotten used to a bulky cast.

"Congrats, Ziver."

" _Toda._ Another day and I would have ripped it off myself."

Gibbs snorted. "Don't doubt that." He patted her cheek, the cool skin warming in his palm. "It's good to see you happy."

"I am." That smile again. It threw him back a couple years. So did her…animation. She was _buzzing_.

This Ziva—free and happy—was a sight for his old, sore eyes.

"Abby is upstairs and we brought lunch. Unless you are in the middle of something and do not wish to stop?"

He pinched the rectangle of sandpaper between two fingers, pick-pocket style. "It can wait."

The girls didn't bring lunch—they brought ingredients, and together took over his utilitarian kitchen.

"Pancakes, Gibbs! Breakfast for lunch. Don't you love pancakes?" Abby had on her frilly skull-and-crossbones apron, usually reserved for experiments in her lab. "It's a recipe from Ziva's mom."

Color bloomed on the Israeli's cheekbones, heat from the stovetop only partly to blame. " _Ima_ was not a…conventional parent—"

 _Makes two for you, kid._

Gibbs kept the thought to himself and washed the workbench off his hands.

"But she loved to cook and taught me everything she knew. I remember when I was little, she would put me on a stool and hand me a thick wooden spoon to stir the pots."

"That why you make so many of those _damn_ spoons now?" They showed up in his silverware draw, jumbled in with his projects—and she hadn't carved in months.

The whisk tinged the side of the mixing bowl. Ziva's eyes darted. A shoulder shrugged. "Perhaps."

 _Copy that_.

Gibbs backed off. Abby…not as much.

"That reminds me! We went to Eastern Market after the doctor and I'd totally forgotten that they have a flea market there, too, with artisans and all this diverse stuff, but then _duh_ , I got my Hindu wedding doll there a few years ago and—"

"Abby, I told—"

"Oh, come on, it would be so cool!"

"Abbs…"

"But Gibbs, don't you think she should try selling her wood carvings? I mean, like your spoons are so beautiful and one-of-a-kind and…" Abby wrung her hands, wheedling, "I don't get why you don't want to share them."

Oil jumped in the pan. Ziva lowered the flame. Lifted a molten brown gaze. "I am not interested, as I told you earlier—as I will tell you every time you ask. Respect that."

"But—"

Gibbs rested a hand on Abby's shoulder. "You heard her. Enough."

Blueberry mingled with the hot oil wafts, but all sweetness of the day was up in smoke.

…

Gibbs came in from outside and plodded down the stairs. The basement was dim, cool, faintly damp. The earth swelled against its walls. Rain, later; spring, soon.

Ziva looked up, but didn't budge from her seat at the worktable. The dangling, exposed bulb glowed around her like a searchlight. Found, again. How had it been six months since she walked through his door?

"Is it all right if I stay?"

"'Course."

"I am…" Her hands—both of them—fluttered as words failed. He hadn't seen that in awhile. "Restless, I think. I do not want to go home yet."

"You're always welcome, Ziva."

Ripples over her lips—no substitute for her smile, the one from an hour earlier. Free Ziva.

A detour to the workbench, and then he joined her. Coming off his fingers, the Mason jars clinked, their amber contents sloshing. "For the pain," he ordered, with a nod to her bad hand.

The wrist was swollen, the knuckle and finger joints red and shiny, the skin taut. He'd spied her use the frail appendage to balance a pan, flip the spatula. A frown crimped her mouth, but she sipped dutifully. Pain over denial.

The glass drained before she spoke. "Abby is upset with me."

 _She'll call. She'll want to have lunch again—_ promises Gibbs had made to get Abby into her car. _Ziva's still healing, Abbs._

"She just wants the best for you." A breath. "She's not alone."

Ziva swallowed, tongue clicking. She ran her thumb along the inside of her bad palm. "I know, but it is a hobby. You understand that, yes? Besides, I am not good enough to ask that people _buy_ my work."

"Explain that to her, then."

"I tried!"

Gibbs smirked. "Try harder."

She laughed. He echoed her. The air loosened, a little.

"That all?"

Her brow creased. "All…what?"

"You mentioned your mom."

 _That your professional diagnosis, Doc? We need more heart-to-hearts?_

 _It certainly wouldn't hurt._

Gibbs held her in his stare, his feet solid on the floor. "Seemed important."

"I…" Hesitation, but not full retreat. She tilted her head, thinking. Choosing. "I have never thought of my mother connected to _this._ " One of her spoons—long-handled, shallow well—rested nearby, and she drew it close. "I was not expecting it."

Slushy droplets _splat-splat_ against the ground-level window. He finished his drink, dropped the glass to the wood. "Hell of a way to honor her, if you ask me."

The words ignited the pallor of her skin. Or maybe the whiskey was doing its job. Her shoulders were loose—as were her thoughts. "Who are you honoring with all your boats, Gibbs?"

 _He thought of the Kelly with oak and every spring_ …

"It's not just the boats." His voice scratched above a whisper. "They've each got their place."

 _Autumn, and cherry wood, belonged to Ziva…_

"What are you making now?" She toyed with the scrap of sandpaper as he grabbed a fresh 2x4.

"What'd'ya want to learn?"

Ziva stretched her thumb. Out, in, out. "I am limited. I have not yet started physical therapy and—"

"Limited…" Gibbs plucked the sandpaper and slapped it to a block, holding it out to her. "But still capable, David."

The rain beat on, and Ziva slid from the stool, chin high. _Reporting for duty._ She accepted the sander with a swift nod. And a flash of _that_ smile. "I am ready, Gibbs."

His top lip quirked. "'Bout _damn_ time."

…

"Wait—" Tony popped out of the en suite, toothbrush lolling from his mouth. "Wha ya say gonna billed?"

Ziva puzzled, her swollen hand propped on pillows. "I can barely understand you."

He disappeared again. The water ran. Then— "Better?" And the demonstration of his fresh breath had her chasing a second kiss. Third. Fourth.

She sighed and lay back, utterly won over. "Better, but what I am building will stay a surprise."

Before leaving the basement, she'd had Gibbs appraise the sketch of her idea. _Can do, Ziver._

Tony crawled in bed, a heat-seeking missile for her side. "I can live with that if it means you're getting back on the horse."

"What horse?"

His airy chuckles raised gooseflesh along her arms. "Never mind. Oh, I keep forgetting to mention, Vance asked about you."

The lamp on the nightstand was too bright. Ziva blinked—and probed: "Why? What does he want?"

"To chat, apparently. I told him you'd have a yay or nay once we get back."

 _Dulles to Ben Gurion. El Al. Connecting. Almond tree—_

"It's probably nothing."

She released her lip from between worrying teeth. "Yes."

Tony brought her shrunken hand down from the pillow mountain, scaling each purple knuckle ridge with his thumb. "Scaly…sure you're okay?"

"Healing takes—" A yawn interrupting. "Time," she finished, sinking further into him and the warmth all around.

"Did the spoon drama wear you out?"

Ziva scoffed. "I cannot believe Abby snicked to you."

"Snitched. She was worried."

A call, and apologizes, were due to the sensitive scientist in the morning. The light switched off and he shuffled their bodies close, foreheads touching, legs threading. She imagined them from above, sailing on a misshapen fragment of cast plaster.

 _Love—_

"I can see it."

Her eyelids fluttered up to half-mast. "Hm?"

Heat pumped through the vents. Sawdust scent lingered on her hair. Outside, drizzle pinged and plopped. Would they wake to a flood? A river of ice?

"You," he finally said. "A woodwork entrepreneur—"

" _Tony_."

"Maybe not the tent set-up Abby envisioned, but something. You've come this far. Why not?"

 _I don't get why you don't want to share them._

 _Hell of a way to honor her..._

Stale arguments simmered in her throat. Ziva tamed them, curled her fingers into his shirt. Pulled him tight, _tighter_ to her. "How can you all be so sure?" _Of me_ went unspoken.

Tony nuzzled her cheek, whispering, "I've told you, _Zee-va_. We've got your back."

Was that enough? "I have changed."

A pause. "You've _grown_ , but you're still you. You always…thrive."

She hummed, palming his neck as his mouth landed softly against hers, bridging her lifetimes, languid travels over lip and tongue. This was starting over. The bedroom righted, the world righted. They took breath.

"Tony?"

He tossed an arm over her hip, nestling his face in her neck. "Mh-hm?"

"Thank you for…for you." Ziva brushed her lips along his brow, a fleet marking. Her-Tony.

Under her hand, his pulse jumped, galloped, and settled. "I feel the same way, Sweetcheeks. Exactly the same."


End file.
